Being Human
by Pearlglimmer
Summary: She had fought Death, defied Death, and even went to school with Death. But nobody told her what death actually felt like.
1. Prologue

Aigis thought she had gotten over death after Makoto.

She did not realise how wrong she was.

For several years after the Dark Hour ended in 2010, she enjoyed her life with the Shadow Operatives, working together with Mitsuru and the rest to solve supernatural cases around Japan, and sometimes even overseas. Aigis could not ask for more. After all, it was a rare chance to work with so many people that she had closely bonded with over the years. They even expanded their task force, welcoming new people into the Shadow Operatives, and to Aigis, everything was perfect.

That fantasy shattered soon enough, though.

* * *

The first death Aigis experienced was Koromaru's.

He had just returned from a mission with Ken in tow, walking slowly like the old dog he was, but still with a strength in each of his steps. When Ken collapsed in Mitsuru's office couch from exhaustion, Koromaru joined his master on his lap, and growled in contentment when Aigis petted him without waking Ken up. After a couple of minutes though, the growls stopped, but it was when he stopped breathing that Aigis realized Koromaru had just passed away in his sleep.

Ken was inconsolable for two weeks ("He was right there on my lap, and I didn't notice anything until Aigis told me!"), but eventually picked himself up. Koromaru was buried next to Makoto and Shinjiro, his collar Evoker buried with him. Ken kept the little wing ornaments as a memoir, displayed on his work desk in the Shadow Operatives office.

Akihiko died around twenty years into his marriage with Mitsuru.

He was head of a police raid group to take down a drug cartel that was circulating similar drugs that Shinjiro had taken when he was alive, causing a breakout of Shadow-related incidents. At some point during the raid, a Persona belonging to a lackey had gone out of control, incinerating the whole forest and triggering the carefully-set traps the police had planted beforehand. Akihiko had been an unfortunate victim, caught up in the shrapnel of a bomb near him. He spent several days in the hospital while the Kirijo doctors tried to save him, but in the end, it was not enough. Mitsuru, Aigis and Junpei were all by his side when he took his last breaths, until the monitor beeped out a flat line.

Mitsuru mourned, but did not let it affect her work. She put on that queenly mask she was so well known for, and kept the Kirijo Group running as if her husband was still around. Still, Aigis could hear sobs in her room late into the night, when all the other workers had left for the evening. She knew better than to interrupt Mitsuru during those moments, but always left something out in the doorway, whether it was a blanket, or a cup of her favourite tea.

Mitsuru herself only outlived Akihiko by fifteen years.

"Overwork," the doctors said, and Aigis could clearly see it. There were heavy eyebags under Mitsuru's eyes, only covered up by her thick layers of makeup, and her skin was gaunt with stress. By then, she had cleaned up most of the remnants left by her grandfather's research, and the Kirijo Group was expanding overseas rapidly. Yet, even with all the extra work piled up on her desk, Mitsuru had refused to hire anymore help apart from Aigis and Kikuno as full timers, only allowing Sakura Futaba and Fuuka to occasionally help out and organize the massive amounts of data that she received everyday, since their main jobs were elsewhere. When Aigis asked about the reason, she simply said that she "did not trust anyone else."

It was a sad reality, because the Kirijo Group still had enemies in the world.

At this point, Aigis realized that she might be the only person to witness Makoto coming back, out of their original team as S.E.E.S. _If_ he came back, that is. She did not know where Elizabeth was, or what she was doing after all.

The company was handed down to Mitsuru and Akihiko's son, according to her will. It took some time and coaching, but Mitsuru had prepared him well to take over the company. Slowly, he ironed out the kinks in his management, and kept the Kirijo Group running.

Aigis found herself as the head of the Shadow Operatives as the most senior member, but at least that transition was smooth, plus probably permanent for a long time. It did not feel the same without Mitsuru though, and even the experienced reserve members – the Investigation Team and the Phantom Thieves (that they finally managed to find, after several months of playing cat-and-mouse with them) agreed.

The next two deaths happened so quickly, Aigis hardly had time to process them.

Yukari had been down with a minor cold that somehow blew up to the point that she was hospitalized on a very short notice. When Aigis visited her, she had looked fine. After ten minutes of talking, doctors were rushing into her room to try and figure out why all of her vitals were dropping.

Aigis did not even have time to say goodbye before Yukari flatlined.

Then, Aigis did not even get to witness the next death.

The next month, while Aigis was numbly working off the pain in her heart through paperwork, she received a call from Junpei's wife Chidori, informing her that he had passed away in his sleep. It had taken a moment for Aigis to process Chidori's words, then it was only through locking down on her limbs that Aigis was barely able to keep a grip on her phone. Mechanically, she consoled Chidori over the phone, just like how she would console family members of deceased Shadow Operatives, then helped her arrange his funeral.

From then on, Aigis drowned herself in work.

Even after seventy years, she still clearly remembered the scene on the Gekkoukan High school rooftop, with his head on her lap, her caressing his hair, and promising him that she would protect him forever. If that meant not thinking about death, even when it was clearly affecting her, just so that his burden as the Seal would be lessened slightly, then she would not give herself time to think about it.

Labrys became concerned about the amount of work Aigis was doing as her second-in-command (and was that odd, two robots leading the most secretive branch of the Japanese police force), but Aigis waved her off, thanking her for her concern.

She later poured out all her bottled-up feelings to Labrys, when she finally stopped piling work on herself and having her machinery replaced four times in six months due to overheating. Her sister lent a listening ear, and that was enough for Aigis to calm down and re-evaluate her rather unhealthy habits of coping, as much as it was unhealthy for a robot. It was just like how she handled Makoto's death all over again.

Death was inevitable after all, but it should not be thoughtlessly rejected.

Ken died in a car accident.

The hurtful thing was, he had just came out of a reunion with Aigis, old bones creaking as he shuffled back to his home. Aigis had barely turned her back to him before she heard an alarming screech of tires on asphalt, and the next thing she was aware of was screaming. She pushed herself through the crowd, not wanting to believe what her robotic senses were telling her, but the truth could not be denied. At some point, someone had called an ambulance. Ken was pronounced dead on the spot.

Aigis attended his funeral along with Labrys. Hardly anyone remembered Ken at the Shadow Operatives office anymore, considering that he had retired for quite some years, and those who did were still rookies when Ken was around, so they hardly got to know him as his rank was so much higher than the others. The same stabbing grief raked at Aigis, but this time, she maintained work as usual, and was not overworking herself again. Regular talking, or rather, venting, sessions with Labrys helped, combined with her reminding Aigis that there were still new people to bond with. She still had her bouts of busying herself to forget about how almost everyone close to her had passed away, but somehow, someone in the office would always remind Aigis to take a break, robot or not.

It was no good to hold onto past ties, denying the fact that they were gone, physically at the very least.

Fuuka was the last to go, perhaps owing to the fact that she never really battled at the front lines, so she never was in much danger unlike everyone else.

Aigis never quite knew what possessed Fuuka to call her and ask for a visit half an hour before she died, closing her eyes as if she was just going to take a nap. Perhaps it was Juno, informing herself that her time was up. But that was the exact situation Aigis found herself in: watching someone slowly taking their last breaths on a sunny porch, having just made small talk for the last fifteen minutes, as if Fuuka wanted to create one last pleasant memory for her to take to the afterlife. Honestly, Aigis did not mind.

When everyone had left after Fuuka's funeral, Aigis stayed back, her eyes gazing over the freshly-dug grave. Then, she cried for the first time since the day Makoto died, oily tears flowing uncontrollably out of her eye sockets.

"Please rest well, everyone. I promise I will live, for your sakes."

She wiped her tears, and turned her back. She has years to sort out her grief.

* * *

More than two hundred years later, Aigis was still active in the field.

The Kirijo conglomerate had gone through numerous shifts in size but was eventually unable to keep operating in the scale they had before. At that point, Public Security decided to step in, officially making the Shadow Operatives a part of the police force, though they were still as secretive as before. The heads had the shock of their lives when Aigis introduced herself as the head of the Operatives, even more so when she revealed herself as a robot. One of them passed out on the spot, unable to process the fact that a robot had been leading one of the most efficient squads of the police force for the past two hundred years. Nevertheless, she somehow managed to hammer out a decent working relationship, even if she had to compromise by having to report to someone else after every mission, that "someone else" changed way too often for her liking, and the vast majority of them treated her like a robot, expecting her to follow all orders as programmed. Unfortunately for them, Aigis was way past that stage.

Both Aigis and Labrys had their parts upgraded over the years, while they were still part of the Kirijo company, and afterwards as part of the government. Weapons were updated, machinery was replaced. It culminated in some very realistic-looking skin covers for their metallic bodies so that it was easier for them to blend in as a human, even if science had developed to the point that humanoid robots were widely accepted as part of daily life. There was still no way for scientists to duplicate the level of human emotions that the anti-Shadow weapons had though, partially because they did not know how to create a Plume of Dusk or where to find them after the Kirijo Group dissolved, and partially because there was no way Aigis was going to let herself or her sister become an experiment for possibly amoral scientists and engineers to operate on, no matter how they phrased it. When the government threatened to forcibly deconstruct Aigis and Labrys to find out how they can reverse-engineer the technology used, Aigis turned it right back at them by threatening to dissolve the Shadow Operatives, and her friends – the new Persona users that she had found and sheltered over the years, rallied behind her. The government was not idiotic enough to risk losing the only branch of police who could deal with the supernatural world – that, surprisingly, was growing in frequency, so they eventually relented.

Yes, Shadows still existed after two hundred years, coming through different dimensions and realities. They were still a threat to humanity, though no incident had quite ballooned to the likes of the Dark Hour and Nyx. At one point though, they started receiving reports of Shadows manifesting in the real world, raising alarms in Aigis's head about the Fall.

However, no such thing happened. The strange new Shadows were regularly exterminated, and life went on. Eventually, they cropped up so much that it just became part of a daily patrol routine for them.

Even then, Aigis knew. She knew she was not infallible, that she would either retire, run out of power, or be destroyed at some point.

That was exactly what happened, after an unfortunate encounter with a god in a Shadow filled verse. One wrong jump, and she found her chassis torn open by a long, clawed hand, her Papillon Heart exposed.

The next, it was crushed.

Before her sensors stopped, the last thing Aigis remembered was Labrys desperately calling for her name, the other Persona users trying to run to her aid. There were no outward expressions on Aigis's vacant face, but deep down, she was satisfied.

"Have I lived well enough, Makoto…?"

There was no funeral for Aigis, just her parts being recycled for scrap. Still, in the Shadow Operatives office, one small plaque was erected, right below the names of the original S.E.E.S. members.

"In memory of Aigis, the most humane of us."

* * *

 **A/N: Well hello there, everyone! Welcome to my first real attempt at writing fanfiction!**

 **Just to be clear on what the format is, I plan on this series being a string of connected one-shots, following a loose storyline of Aigis in Soul Society. I literally have no idea what it is going to be like other than the setting and perhaps some specific scenes, so do bear with me. That said, the next update is probably coming around mid-May or early June, because I am currently in the midst of finals (what am I even thinking, writing fanfiction at this time?!). After that, well…I have no set schedule. Maybe I will, if anyone can come up with a solid storyline for me.**

 **Constructive feedback is extremely welcome, especially on characterization and writing style. I would love to improve in the future, especially because I actually draw more comics than write stories.**


	2. Brand New Days -The Beginning-

Aigis thought she would never wake up again.

Apparently, that was wrong.

She first became aware of soft music flowing into her ears, which made her curious. She was dead, as far as her memories could tell her, so she had assumed that she would just cease to exist. If she was hearing something, then that theory would be wrong.

She decided to open her eyes.

Then promptly did a double take.

After all, Aigis had not accessed the Velvet Room in more than a hundred years.

It had once again taken up the shape of an elevator, the form she was most familiar with. As far as she could tell, it was parked. Aigis herself was seated on a plush, velvet chair as usual, with Igor grinning at her with his trademark creepy smile, seated at his usual desk. Behind him, the iron gates of the elevator marked the edge of the room, with only darkness as far as the eye could see beyond that. The clock on the iron gate was spinning, for some reason. Elizabeth was nowhere to be seen, nor any of the other attendants.

"Welcome to the Velvet Room," Igor's smooth voice interrupted Aigis's thought process. "I believe it has been a while, my dear guest. How curious to see you here."

"I thought…I was dead." Aigis replied.

"Yes indeed," Igor said nonchalantly, "but fate seems to have other plans for you."

Before Aigis could interrupt him, he continued.

"It seems that a new journey awaits you. You will not require our services – your bonds are more than sufficient to help you along." Here, Igor finally paused, waiting for Aigis's reaction.

"I understand."

Igor's smile grew marginally wider.

"I cannot wait to see what you will do," he said. "As a parting gift, let me read one last fortune for you."

At Aigis's nod, he took out a deck of tarot cards and laid them on the table. With one hand, he spread them out in a circle, much like how he usually fused different Personas together. Then, he gently flipped one card over, his hand not touching the deck the whole time.

The card flipped over was the upright Hierophant.

"Ah yes," Igor mused, "your past will be important in your upcoming tasks. How you will handle it – " he waved his hand and the cards disappeared into puffs of blue smoke, "is up to you."

 _Cryptic as usual_ , Aigis thought. She straightened her back as indication that she heard him.

"I should not be keeping you here any longer," he finally said, as black mist creeped up the edges of Aigis's vision. "Well then, I wish you the best of luck."

The Velvet Room faded completely from her consciousness.

* * *

Aigis became aware of herself and her surroundings when she felt a gentle breeze brush past her face. Slowly, she realized she could smell something around her. She recognized it too. It was the smell of grass.

She decided to open her eyes.

Then promptly squeezed them shut.

Sunlight had almost blinded her…!

She hastily threw an arm over her eyes to block out the sun. After the dizzying dots of light finally cleared from her eyes, Aigis opened her eyes, more cautiously this time.

Her guess was right. She was indeed laid down in a clearing, heavily forested on all sides. As far as she could see, there was no end to the forest beyond the clearing, and from the position of the sun, it was probably sometime late morning. She sat up from her position, wanting a better look at the surroundings.

She then remembered something that she neglected when she tried to block the sun with her arm. Her arm felt _warm._ If her arm was that warm, it usually meant she was overheating. However, she had not done anything except waking up, and she heavily doubted that someone had programmed her to do something while she was unconscious. The remote control for her system had been thrown away a long time ago.

At that thought, she realized something critical.

She could not tell the state of her body.

There was always a small display in the corner of her vision whenever she was active, showing the status of her body, where it was working normally, where it was damaged, or where it was overheating. However, she found no such display in her vision, which was odd.

Aigis finally looked down at her body.

She was somehow clothed in a pale blue kimono, which reminded her of the dress that she had worn on the pier in Yakushima, where she first met Makoto. That was not the important part. The important part was that her feet had changed.

She never remembered straw sandals actually fitting over her feet, nor getting an upgrade to have toes on them.

The unexpected addition to her body was soon ignored in favour of realizing that she was somehow sensing everything _wrong._ Everything was more vivid than when she was alive, with her acutely sensing changes in wind direction and temperature. Instead of it being merely units of data, it felt as if everything was real in a way she had never experienced before. A hypothesis slowly formed in her mind, Aigis finally realizing that she might have been slightly slow on the uptake.

Just to confirm her theory, she pinched herself.

What felt like electricity jolted through her senses from where she had pinched herself, startling her. More astonishingly, she felt _flesh._

For one reason or another, Aigis had turned human.

No machinery inside her body.

No finger guns when she tried to activate them.

No weapons coming out of her back.

No disks representing her ears.

Well, no wonder she got toes. Tentatively, she tried to move them, just to see if she could control each individual toe.

They did not budge.

Oh, of course. Aigis did not know which muscles pulled the toes. Theoretically, she knew, but she had no experience controlling them as a robot with a stub for a foot. To remedy that, she bent over to gingerly touch them with her hand.

Another jolt of electricity passed through her body when her hand made contact with her foot, in a place where Aigis felt it was absolutely _weird._ It was as if the toe existed entirely outside of her system, like unexpectedly touching something invisible. Except it was connected to herself. She gently bended each toe with her finger, familiarizing herself with the motor control of her toes.

After a few minutes, Aigis decided to try standing up.

She knew how to move her body, but the unexpected appendage at the end of her leg proved to be getting in the way, and it felt woefully weak, unlike the rest of her body which felt closer to the kind of strength that she had as a robot. Not quite as strong as back she was alive, but close to a well-trained Persona user. With great effort and a boost from her hand still on the grass, she finally stood up on shaky legs.

That had taken much more of her energy than she had anticipated. Still, it felt easier the longer she remained standing, so she decided to take a step when she felt her balance was good enough.

That was a mistake.

The moment Aigis lifted her left leg up, her left foot caught the back of her right leg, shifting her center of balance and sending her toppling back into the grass, face first. The same jolt that she felt when she pinched herself exploded all over her front side, though not quite as strongly as before. Belatedly, she realized that that was probably how humans felt _pain._

It felt tempting to keep laying down on the ground, but Aigis was stubborn. She slowly regained control of her motor functions, and pulled herself back up. Standing up did not feel like such a chore, now that she went through the motions of it again.

She took a step, this time more carefully than before. Her right foot brushed against her left leg, but otherwise she managed to take one small, wobbly step. That was progress.

Five unstable steps later, another step almost tripped her over, but she braced her body against a tree before she could fall again into the grass. Using the chance to take a break, Aigis looked over her surroundings again.

The forest still stretched out as far as her eyes could see, and she still did not know where she was. However, upon closer inspection, the forest was not as dense as she had initially assumed, with sunlight filtering through the leaves in intermittent patches on the grass. There was enough light to see where she was going, at the very least. From the light green colour of the trees, she assumed that the date roughly coincided with her death, in March. Strangely though, she did not see any sort of wildlife from when she woke up.

That was cause for concern, but Aigis was not going to make any progress in investigating her situation if she stayed here. She pushed herself off the tree trunk, and kept walking.

Morning turned to dusk, but Aigis still had not found any civilization. Nothing else had happened on her journey either, save for sparse roars coming from different directions. They sounded eerily like the sounds that Shadows manifesting in the real world would make, so Aigis steered clear of them. She did not want to get in a fight while she was so weak and out of control of her motor functions, plus she did not know if, as a human, she would now need an Evoker to summon a Persona. She did not want to risk it.

There was no way she was going to give up her new, puzzling life so easily.

Dusk turned to night, and the roars became more frequent, forcing Aigis to divert further from her original calculated path. It was hard to see in the dark, the moon providing much less light than the sun would have. She had tried to turn on her night vision mode for her eyes, but it was only after a few tries to activate them before Aigis remembered that humans did not have this function. It made navigating the forest all that much harder, and she crashed into tree trunks several times, though at that point she was slowly getting used to the feeling of pain. The air still felt warm enough, but her feet were getting heavier and stiffer for some reason, and they felt strangely hot. A soft, gurgling sound, coupled with a strange, bubbly feeling around the area of her abdomen slowly increased in frequency the longer she walked. Her throat slowly started to feel like sandpaper.

She ignored them.

Night turned to dawn, the first rays of orange peeking through the treetops. Aigis had kept walking all this time, avoiding what she assumed were Shadows, occasionally stumbling into a tree or tripping over undergrowth. The strange, bubbly feeling in her abdomen was gone, replaced by something like a miniature storm cloud, small jolts of pain constantly stabbing through the area. Her throat was now positively raking against her senses. Her steps had become slow and sluggish. With more light to see her surroundings, Aigis found that she was still deep within the forest, but then she noticed something out of the ordinary.

There was a hut, half hidden by the trees between them.

Ah, so there _was_ civilization here.

She hastened her steps to the hut, willing her legs to take her as fast as they could move. Half hobbling, half running, she reached out her hand –

Her sensors suddenly shut down, leaving Aigis in complete darkness. A second later, her awareness shut down.

Later that morning, a man walked out of his hut, and nearly tripped over something right in front of his doorway.

"Great, another lost traveler?"

* * *

Aigis woke up to the sound of something knocking against each other. As her senses recovered, she realized it was the sound of wood knocking against metal. Judging it to be dark enough, she opened her eyes.

She was in a small structure, probably the hut that she saw before she lost consciousness, laying down on a futon, a think blanket spread out over her body. To her left, a pile of chopped wood was stacked haphazardly against a mud-covered wall with a large axe leaning against them; to her right, a low, wooden table was laid out, the kind that Aigis would often see at traditional Japanese homes. Straight in front of her was a doorway that led to outside, with orange sunlight filtering through the doorway. It seems like she had slept through the whole day and woke up at dusk. Off to the side, someone had his back turned to her, appearing to cook something on top of a fire stove. He appeared to be rather stocky and average in height, meaning that he was somewhat taller than Aigis. His hair was roughly cropped, and there were some silver strands showing against his black hair. He wore a dull grey yukata, and a pair of straw sandals just like her own.

Aigis tried to sit up, but found that she had no strength to do so. Additionally, her legs felt like they were on fire, though she was sure they were not, otherwise she knew she would have burned away her futon a long time ago. They were also quite locked in place, feeling like someone had weighed her legs down with lead. Her throat still felt like sandpaper rubbing against the inside of her neck.

Her struggles did not go unheard though, as the man in the hut had somehow heard her shift in her blanket over the din of his cooking, and he turned around to look.

"Oh, seems like the little princess is finally awake!" He said. When Aigis did not react with anything other than a questioning look, he sighed and continued. "How do you feel?"

 _I seem to be unable to move my body,_ was what she wanted to say, but it only came out as a hoarse whisper. The man looked somewhat startled, then a resigned look crept onto his face.

"Do you want some water first?" He asked.

Aigis nodded. She would take what she could for now and pay him back later. She knew that water was essential for humans to live, but seemed to have forgotten that while she was travelling yesterday.

The man came back with a wooden bowl, filled with clear water. He propped Aigis up a little using his free arm, grunting as he did so, and tipped the bowl slightly towards Aigis's mouth, guiding her to swallow it.

Once the first drops of water touched her throat, it felt as if it was smoothing over. Her neck no longer felt uncomfortable, but it was not enough. She kept on drinking until the bowl was empty, then let out a long, satisfied sigh.

So that was what _thirst_ felt like. Aigis made a mental note to remember the feeling, and not neglect what her body is telling her, now that she did not have an automated system to give her updates. She did not need her body breaking down, and if it did, it would take far too much effort to fix her body, unlike how broken machine parts could be easily replaced.

"Need some more?" The man asked.

"Yes please," she replied, "and thank you."

At least her voice came out just like she had remembered, with the same general tonality.

"No need to thank me," he said gruffly as he went to fill the bowl with water, "though I would appreciate travelers like you to stop appearing in front of my home out of nowhere. I know it's tough to survive, but it's a strain on me too." He came back, then handed the bowl to Aigis, who was now sitting upright on the futon. She accepted it with slightly shaking hands, and demurely took sips from it. The man sat down next to the table, crossing his legs over each other.

While drinking the water, Aigis took her first good look at her rescuer.

He was quite rugged in a world-weary way, as if he had seen quite a bit of life. The crinkles around his eyes and mouth indicated that he appeared to be around his late forties to fifties, and his face reminded her of a gorilla, with small, beady eyes and a mouth that seemed to be out of proportion to the rest of his face. Lingering stubble stuck out around his chin.

When Aigis finished her next bowl of water, he stood up and walked over to the stove.

"Guess the porridge should be ready," he mumbled. Then louder, "Did you know how loudly your stomach growled when you were asleep? I had to specifically go out to gather food for you, you know."

Was it really that loud? Normally, Aigis guessed that she should have been surprised or embarrassed. Yukari certainly did that. However, her lack of energy discouraged her from doing anything other than stare blankly at his back.

He came back from the stove with one steaming pile of mush. It did not look appetizing, but she knew that she had no choice but to accept, for her own survival.

"I am sorry to have troubled you, sir." Aigis apologized while eating the porridge with a spoon that he passed to her. The man gave a grunt from his position at the table. From what he said earlier, she concluded that the growling in her abdomen from last night was probably her body telling her that she was hungry. It seemed to be true too, as the pain in her stomach slowly lessened the more she ate. That was another point to take note of, if she wanted to survive and find out what Igor meant.

The food was practically tasteless, with the barest hint of grass, and the texture was like stone mixed with pulp. Still, it was edible, so she ate it without a complaint.

"Don't 'sir' me, girl," he said with some annoyance in his tone, as if he was not used to being called that. "If you need to, call me Morioka-san. Morioka Kaneto's my name."

Aigis did a small bow, as much as she could manage while sitting in a futon with a bowl of porridge. "Aigis. It's nice to meet you, Morioka-san."

"Keh," Morioka grunted. "A foreigner? Don't see many of them around."

She made no discernible reaction. He was the first person that she met after waking up here, and since he spoke Japanese to her, she assumed that she was somewhere with a large Japanese population.

"If I may ask, where is this place?" Aigis asked in the middle of her meal. The man raised one bushy eyebrow at her, seemingly finding the question rather incredulous.

"It's the forest outside the thirty-fifth district in South Rukongai, missy," he replied offhandedly. "This place is some pretty ways out from the nearest town. How did you even get here?"

Aigis stopped the spoon that was halfway to her mouth. "Rukon…gai?"

Morioka's other eyebrow joined his first. "You…" he began, then understanding came over his face. "Oh. So you're a new soul."

This was getting stranger by the minute. "A new soul?" Aigis asked. That was a strange way to reference her.

"You just died, didn't you?" The frank way he said that aloud threw her off balance, and she could only mutely nod to the question. He took it as permission to continue.

"This whole place, we call it Soul Society," Morioka explained while Aigis resumed eating. "It's where souls of the dead come to live. The place we're in, Rukongai, is the residential district of Soul Society."

Aigis could see how the name fit the purpose. It was indeed a place for wandering souls.

"Are there other districts?" she asked in between bites.

"Just one more. We call it Seireitei," he replied. "It's where the Shinigami live, and is in the center of Soul Society."

Shinigami?

At Aigis's puzzled look, Morioka sighed.

"You seriously don't know anything do you?

"…No. I woke up yesterday."

He seemed about ready to tear his hair out.

"Fine. Were you guided here by a person wearing a black kimono, wielding a sword?"

"No."

Aigis neglected to mention that she _had_ seen who he was referring to, when she went hunting for Shadows in the real world. They never seemed to notice her, and both parties kept a wide berth between them.

"Well, they're the Shinigami. They basically act as the police, doing patrols, guiding souls to the afterlife, killing Hollows and all."

Aigis felt bad about getting him to explain so many things, but something in that sentence caught her ears.

"Hollows?"

"Monsters." His reply was curt. "Deranged souls with bone masks and a hole somewhere on their body. Eats souls as their meals."

She nodded at his explanation with a neutral expression, but inwardly she was frowning. That sounded uncomfortably similar to the Shadows she had to fight in the real world, especially because she remembered some of them trying to eat some of her operatives. Nobody actually got eaten, but it was close.

His explanation on Shinigami done, he went on to the next topic.

"Souls here don't age quickly." Morioka thumped his chest. "Been here over a hundred years, and all that changed was a couple more white hairs. Most of us don't get hungry, and we only need to drink food to survive."

"How did I get hungry then?" His explanation did not make sense to Aigis.

"Exceptions." He replied. "People with reiryoku get hungry."

Another new term.

"Reiryoku?"

"Spiritual energy, in other words. Kinda like magic. Soul Society is basically made of this stuff, but most people only have a little and can live off the land. Most of the powerful people end up as Shinigami because they get a better life there than us folks here."

Ah. So that was why he had to go out to gather food for her. Judging from the way he talked and how sparse his hut was, Aigis assumed that Morioka did not have much reiryoku. She also had a good guess to where her own reiryoku came from.

There was a lull in the conversation, during which Aigis ate more of her porridge.

"If possible," she began, after finishing her food, "could you take me to the nearest town?"

Morioka looked contemplative for a moment, then nodded. "I'm going to town in two days to drop off the lumber there," his head jerked to the pile of wood next to her futon, "so you can come with me. I don't mind you staying here for one more day, but after we go to the town, shoo!"

Aigis nodded in understanding. He had not seemed unkind, but she suspected that Morioka only took care of her out of a sense of duty, or pity. It was true that she would be a burden to him if he had to take care of her, purely because she needed to eat. For him, it would be easier if he was alone.

It was now dark outside. Morioka lit an oil lamp on the wall, and went about cleaning the dishes that she had been using. Aigis herself kept trying to move her legs. They felt cooler and more relaxed compared to when she had first woken up, but they were still quite numb. She had also noted that her sandals were next to her futon – Morioka probably took them off when he put her to bed, though he had the decency to keep her clothes on.

With nothing else to do, she mentally reviewed what she learnt the past two days.

Aigis had somehow ended up in Soul Society, essentially the afterlife. Her body was completely human, despite the fact that she was a robot while alive. It may have been because she always regarded herself as a human, regardless of her robotic appearance, so that was why whatever governed the flow of souls recognized her as a human, and her body reflected that. Everything she sensed was no longer converted into data bits to be fed to her computer brain, now relying much on her previous knowledge and intuition. While her memories were mostly preserved, some knowledge was lost, particularly those that were fed into her as data. She could no longer recall some of the minor bits of information that scientists had uploaded into her computer system before Mitsuru started taking care of her. It also meant that she had needs, including food, water, sleep, and probably the need to go to the toilet too, even if it hasn't happened yet. The numb feeling from her legs was most likely caused by walking for too long, resulting in them tiring out.

Of course, Aigis knew what "tired" felt like. However, as a robot, her fatigue was mainly mental, usually when she went without a power recharge for a long time, or when she summoned her Persona too many times. Theoretically, she could go on forever. However, physical fatigue was a new sensation to her, and it was only now that she realized why humans needed to sleep.

It seemed that the human body was indeed quite fragile.

She pulled her consciousness inward to check on her Personas. They were still there, in the deep recesses of her soul, a gentle, comforting presence in this new reality of hers. However, with how unresponsive they were, Aigis suspected that she would not be able to summon them for a long time.

She refocused on her surroundings when Morioka sat down at the table with a loud thump, and then slumped over it. Noticing what he was going to do, Aigis tried to scramble out of her futon, only for her to get tangled in the sheets.

"Keep quiet or else I can't sleep!" Morioka groaned at the sound of loud shuffling. "I'm not cruel enough to make you sleep on the dust floor when you haven't even recovered yet!"

"I have been sleeping in it long enough." Aigis said. "You should take it."

"Just keep it until you leave!"

"No. You must take care of your own health too."

"Who are you, my mother? Besides, you should mind your own health first!"

In the end, she was forced back into the futon, and Morioka passed out on the table.

* * *

 **A/N: I actually finished this 4 days after the first chapter was posted on , but I was still figuring out the story and there were several uncertain things that I wanted to address before posting, hence the delay. I'm not exactly happy with this chapter, but it's necessary world-building stuff that needed to get out of the way. Hopefully I can come back later to edit it, but for now it will stay as it is.**

 **I planned out more of the story, so now I have an endgame in mind, but the first few chapters will stay as one-shots before the plot finally kicks off.**

 **Next chapter: A familiar character finally makes an appearance!**


	3. Peace

Aigis woke up first the next morning. Her legs had recovered, and she felt refreshingly good, as if she could run the whole day with no problems. She probably shouldn't try it in case she got tired again, but there should be something that she could do.

Quietly, she got out of her futon and folded it up neatly on the floor. She put on her sandals, then tiptoed out of the hut.

It was early morning, and sunlight was just beginning to spread past the treetops. The forest was quiet, and Aigis noticed that she still could not see or hear any animals in the area. From Morioka's explanation last night, they were probably scared away by the Sha– Hollows in the area.

She walked around the perimeter of the hut, noticing that there was a small stream behind the hut. That might be where Morioka got his water from. Aigis walked towards it, and got to take her first good look at her own face in the reflection of the water.

She looked almost identical to when she was alive, with short, cropped blond hair, bright blue eyes and a sharp chin that gave her a youthful look. The only difference was that there was some grime on her cheeks and nose, and the absence of her hairband. Her ears were normal, human ears too, not like the red disks that she used to have.

It almost felt like a dream come true, considering how much she wanted to be seen as human when she was alive. There was some irony in the situation too, how she actually became one by dying when she assumed that she would cease to exist.

The somewhat muted shock was still there, and Aigis was not sure how to feel about the whole absurd situation. She felt excited, happy, nervous, and as uncharacteristic of her as it was, _scared_.

Because, being human came along with a whole host of more _practical_ problems.

She was so prone to getting injuries that this was the most vulnerable she had ever felt, along with the fact that it sealed her off from her most familiar weapons – her finger guns. Without a means to defend herself, Aigis felt _exposed_.

Every instinct of hers told her to run, hide, defend and arm herself, but she forcibly tamped them down. There was no need to fight anyone in Soul Society. Yet.

Although, she should not mention being a robot before she died.

Aigis splashed some water onto her face to wash off the grime, and noted how refreshing it was. Akihiko had that habit too, especially when he just woke up. He had explained how it felt to him before, but it was only now that she was able to appreciate what he had meant. Completely awake, she contemplated waking her rescuer up.

The rickety door creaked open just as she reached the entrance, revealing tousled hair, and face of Morioka. He yawned widely when he saw Aigis, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. One side of his cheek was red, from his uncomfortable sleeping position last night. He rolled his shoulder, bones creaking as he did so, then blinked and finally focused on her.

"Didn't think you were an early riser." he said. In the sunlight, she noticed that he was rather tanned.

"I did sleep most of the day away yesterday." Aigis said lightly.

"I suppose you did." Morioka opened the door fully, revealing that he had a water bottle attached to the sash on his waist, with the axe over his shoulder. "Feel free to stay around here, but don't go too far. Don't want the Hollows to eat you when you've barely been here. I need to chop some more wood for the town, otherwise they won't pay me."

Aigis nodded. "Stay safe." She said simply.

He grunted, then walked out to the forest. Aigis turned her attention back to the hut. It looked awfully dusty in the morning sunlight, motes dancing around the room whenever she moved. Morioka probably had not cleaned it in a while, even though there were some rags and a rudimentary broom in the corner, right next to the stove.

Well, she had worked as a pseudo maid before to the Kirijo Group heads. She still needed to repay him back for his kindness, after all.

* * *

That evening, Aigis cooked her own meal for the first time in her life. Or death.

She had gone out to gather food, then came across Morioka on the way back, and helped him out in chopping wood. His jaw almost dropped to the ground when he saw her lift the heavy axe without much of a sweat – there was no axe that really could top Labrys's in weight, after all, and had gone chopping at the trees in a speed that he could never hope to match in his life ("I thought you were a frail little flower!"). They ended up taking turns chopping trees, resulting in a rather large pile of wood that they carried back to the hut, where Morioka dropped his jaw for the second time in a day at the sparkling clean hut. She only hoped that she had repaid him back well enough.

To Aigis, it seemed that the afterlife was no different from the living, after all. She idly wondered if she would be able to find her friends in Soul Society, but from what she had gathered in her small talk with Morioka throughout the day, Soul Society was _huge_. The chances of that happening was close to zero.

Her heart fell when she understood that. She desperately wanted to reunite with her friends, because she was practically lost without them. She missed SEES. She missed the Investigation Team. She missed all the other Shadow Operatives. She yearned to apologise to those who lost their lives fighting for them.

Most importantly, she missed Labrys.

She was the only companion who constantly stayed with Aigis throughout her three-hundred-year lifespan, the one who comforted her during all the dark moments, the one who lent a listening ear to her troubles, the one who was her sounding board.

However, there was no use moping around bygones, even if Igor had said that her past would be important. She needed to _move on_.

She needed to make new bonds.

When Morioka insisted on her taking the futon again, Aigis decided that she had enough and bodily forced the wood cutter into the futon instead, with her taking up a corner in the now-clean hut.

The next morning made her realize why humans slept on futons in the first place. Her joints were creaky and stiff from sleeping on the hard floor the whole night, and her arm was numb from being a makeshift cushion. Still, they passed quickly enough, and she got up to prepare herself for a long trip.

Morioka had woken up almost at the same time as her, and while Aigis cooked her breakfast – some wild vegetable soup – he bundled up the logs stashed in the hut, tying them up with thick rattan rope. When she asked if he had some mode of transportation to help him move the large stack of wood, he shrugged, saying that there were no roads this deep in the forest. His body language however, betrayed his light words. He was already huffing slightly when the pile of wood was secured on his bent back, and walked much more slowly than before as he tread heavily through the grass.

Aigis ended up taking half of the wood from his back, carrying it the whole four-hour walk. Morioka had stopped thinking of her as a pampered princess by then despite her delicate features, and just wordlessly accepted her help.

* * *

The town turned out to resemble something straight out of feudal Japan, which surprised Aigis. A sprawling area of mud and wood houses dotted the landscape, broken up by the dust roads and fields that connected each house together. Most of the buildings had thatched roofs, though some of the bigger ones had tiles as roofing instead.

Having been used to massive glass and steel buildings her whole life, she could only stare at the almost fairytale-like scene in front of her. Morioka paid no heed to it, trudging along on the dust road and dropping off small stacks of logs at different households, and exchanging them for water, money and clothes. Most of the people living in the town had some basic supplies at home, so Aigis concluded that the area must be well governed.

The last household they visited, however, was somewhat different.

For starters, it was very loud.

Even before they reached the low mud house at the end of the road, a din could be heard from the inside, mostly children yelling and laughing. A large field stretched out behind the structure, which looked like it was freshly plowed. There were also a few children right in front of the doorway, appearing to play tag with each other. When one of them, a boy who looked to be around twelve, spotted Aigis and Morioka, he hurried back into the house, yelling for someone.

Ten seconds later, Aigis's battle instincts kicked in before she even realized what was happening.

She slid in front of Morioka, then raised her arms in a guarding position.

"YOU'RE LA—" The shout was abruptly cut off when Aigis neatly blocked the flying kick that came from inside the house, one hand holding onto the offending foot. Its owner pushed herself off Aigis's arms and landed heavily on the ground.

The woman who flew out of the house had an imposing aura around her. She was quite tall for a Japanese, with a curvaceous body and fair skin, and straight black hair that reached her upper back, tied together with a hairband. She wore a purple kimono, with the sleeves rolled up, and the front seemed to be covered in dust. Her brown eyes were currently wide open with surprise, which Aigis could relate to.

She herself had not expected to be greeted by a flying kick.

"Thanks for that, Aigis-chan," Morioka was the first to recover as he patted Aigis's shoulder. "You saved me from a painful stomachache."

The casual, almost joking manner in which he said that meant that there was no danger. Aigis allowed her arms to relax and fall back to her sides.

"It's no problem, Morioka-san," she replied, "It will not do for you to walk back to your home with any kind of harm on your body."

"Since when did you pick up a bodyguard?" the woman asked pointedly at Morioka, crossing her arms over her ample chest.

"She's not my bodyguard!" he retorted, slinging his stack of wood off his back. "She collapsed in front of my home two days ago. She just arrived in Soul Society."

"Oh? A new arrival?"

"I'd appreciate it if you could take care of her."

Aigis blinked. She had expected to have to fend for herself, even though she had no plan, but being pushed to another home was unexpected, though welcome. It would save Aigis a lot of effort in the long run, if she was going to live in Soul Society as long as she guessed – a few hundred years.

"You didn't have to do so, Morioka-san." Aigis tried to say.

"You're alright," he said, cutting her off from anymore arguments. "You actually helped me out more than I helped you out. The least I can do is arrange a more permanent place for you to stay." He then looked at the woman. "She's powerful. At least you can take care of her better than I can."

She sighed after a small pause. Her face softened considerably from the frown that she displayed before. "I suppose we have space for one more. Aigis-chan, huh?"

Aigis bowed. "I will be in your care then, ma'am," she said. She then turned back to Morioka and bowed, more deeply this time. "Thank you for everything until now."

"Just don't cause trouble for her. Doubt you would though." Morioka replied.

The woman grinned at her, all hostility gone from her face.

"Ooh, you have good manners!" She put one arm on Aigis's back, herding her into the house while carrying the stack of wood over her shoulder. "I'm Unagiya Ikumi. Just call me Ikumi-neesan!"

"Okay then, Unagiya-san." Aigis replied. Using polite speech, unfortunately, was ingrained in her system, and kicking the habit proved to be hard. She had only called her close friends by their first names, and Labrys was the only one she called without any honorifics in her whole life.

Unagiya gave a long sigh as she opened the door. "Fine then. At your own pace." At least she did not seem offended.

The house was much larger than Morioka's hut. It was also much messier. Clothes were strewn haphazardly on the mud floor, and there were several hammocks hanging from the ceiling. A few futons were laid out on the ground at the far end of the house, all put together as if trying to save space. There was a sizeable kitchen off to the side, with pots and pans laid over the stove inside. A tall stack of bowls was placed next to it, looking as if it was going to topple over any moment. Unagiya led Aigis to the back of the house, where a small wooden door opened to what seemed like a storage room. Picks, farming scythes and hoes lined the walls, and a small stack of wood was placed in the corner. Unagiya dropped her stack off there, and Aigis followed suit.

"Wait here for a bit." Unagiya instructed as she walked out of the storage room. She picked up a few coins from a table in the large living area, then hurried outside, dropping them in Morioka's palm and waved goodbye to him.

By now, the children in the house were all curiously staring at Aigis, and she was starting to feel slightly uncomfortable. She was by no means bad with children, but she did not have much experience interacting with them. Ken was an exception, but it was so long ago, she had mostly forgot how it was like.

"Um –" she began. That was apparently the signal for the children to speak.

"You were so cool, nee-san!" One of them piped up, the same black-haired boy who had called for Unagiya. "You blocked Ikumi-san's kick like it was nothing!" The other children also started speaking over each other, their eyes sparkling with excitement.

"Alright, alright, stop harassing her." Unagiya's voice cut through the din, making everyone turn around to her. "Go out and play, you guys, and don't crowd around her!" The children scattered out of the house, leaving her and Aigis in a considerably emptier room.

"Let's see, the extra bedding should be here…" Unagiya mumbled to herself while she rummaged through a closet in the corner. A moment later, she triumphantly pulled out a futon with an "aha!", and then took out a blanket and pillow, laying them out next to the rest. "It's a bit cramped here, but this should be enough space for you to sleep."

Aigis nodded in thanks, then started asking something that she had meant to ask for a while. "Why do you have so many children here?"

Unagiya smiled, the kind that only a mother could make. "They're all orphans, so somebody's got to take care of them. In this town, that's me," she explained, gazing fondly at the playing children outside. "Some of them also have a little power, so I need to feed them as well instead of just giving them water. I myself have a little. It's the reason why we have a field here, and how I earn my money. None of them are as strong as you though."

Aigis could not sense what Unagiya had meant when she mentioned "power", but she nodded in understanding anyway. "I see."

"Well, it's been a long time since anyone managed to block one of my attacks!" Unagiya said cheerfully. "You'll do just fine here. I'll let you live here as long as you help me out."

That was easy. "I understand." Aigis replied.

"Loosen up!" Unagiya hit her back with the force of a bear, though it did not faze Aigis. "Soul Society is so big, hardly anyone finds their families from when they're alive. So, we make do, and form new families. Now that you're here, you're one of us, got it?" Her voice softened considerably towards the end, as if sensing the lingering hesitation in Aigis.

"Thank you." She said.

"Now that's done, help me out in the kitchen, will you?"

* * *

Dinner turned out to be a rambunctious affair. The children – all eight of them, mostly appearing to be around four to fourteen, gathered around the only large table in the house, jostling against each other as they fought over the dishes laid out. The food was simple, just rice porridge, corn, and pickles, but it was much better than what Aigis had to eat while living at Morioka's hut. The children had quickly introduced themselves, barely giving Aigis time to introduce herself, before launching into a thousand questions about her. She hardly managed to catch their names, but she smiled and answered their questions as much as she could. Unagiya occasionally cut in, making sure all of the children had enough to eat, and giving Aigis some space.

After dinner was over and the dishes cleared, Unagiya herded the children to another room in the house, which turned out to be the bathroom. Aigis raised an eyebrow at the huge wooden tub in the middle of the room, but then reminded herself that Soul Society had the technological advancement of feudal Japan. She helped to heat up the bath water in the tub, then stayed outside while Unagiya struggled with the children ("It's crowded enough in here, we don't need another person taking up space!"). When the children were done washing themselves, Aigis went in to wash herself.

She was aware of a faint smell lingering around herself ever since the day before, and realized that she had not taken a bath ever since she arrived. She had not even taken off her kimono. Of course she would stink.

As Aigis looked down at her naked body while soaked in the hot bath, she appreciated how she and Labrys got realistic skin covers for their bodies, because it helped to cushion the impact of having a human body. It looked just like she remembered, with the right curves and tone. She could get used to this.

* * *

Aigis woke up at dawn again. Perhaps it was a carry-over from the time she was a robot, but she found that she usually did not need much sleep to function well. Everyone in the room was still asleep, their snores filling the room with white noise. Quietly getting out of bed, she folded her futon, then picked her way around the sleeping children to the doorway. There was something she wanted to try.

While alive, there was no need for practicing her combat moves. They were programmed into her body, and if she needed to practice, Labrys was always available for a spar. Here, though, there were no people who could possibly spar with her, and Aigis knew that if she did not train, her skills would deteriorate. It was not a necessary skill, but there was no telling what would happen in the future.

There was just one little problem.

She did not know how to practice alone.

She felt a little stupid, standing alone in the courtyard staring at her hands, wondering how to move them to practice combat. Perhaps she should test the limits of her body first?

Several tumbles into the ground later, both of Aigis's knees were scraped, a burning sensation spreading out from the wounds. Her feet were still getting in the way whenever she ran, tripping her up at unexpected moments. Her jumps were also much weaker than she had remembered, barely jumping a quarter of what she used to do. The strength was there in her legs, but it did not translate to her feet. Her kimono was also getting in the way, restricting the movement of her legs. The only upside was that her punches were as strong as she had remembered.

She looked ruefully at her own feet.

 _I suppose I will have to train them_ , Aigis thought.

Thankfully, no one was around to witness her embarrassing mishaps.

* * *

Unagiya watched Aigis stumble around from inside the house, looking as if she was trying to train, but also failing rather spectacularly at it. How did she stumble over herself so many times while running around? It contrasted heavily with the strength that she showed yesterday when she blocked the kick. The frankly worrying display of subservience she showed throughout the day yesterday was strange too.

Put together, it created a picture that made no sense.

Aigis was an enigma.

However, it also wasn't Unagiya's right to probe into her past.

She looked one last time at Aigis, doing what looked like shadow boxing, then moved away from the window, preparing breakfast for everyone.

* * *

As it turned out, there was much work to be done around the house.

Since she was the oldest appearance-wise, Aigis was put to work on the fields. The time was just right to start planting the crops, so that was what she did all day, scattering seeds in the plowed fields. It was hard work in a whole other category than what she was used to, and by the end of the day her back was having trouble trying to straighten up.

Somehow, the two children who scattered seeds with her – a girl named Megumi who looked around thirteen but was kindly informed by her that she was actually almost a hundred years old, and the twelve-year-old boy (who was actually seventy) called Kuro – looked fine, and were even energetically playing with the younger kids in the house right before dinnertime.

It made Aigis feel old. She probably was, compared to everyone else in the house.

* * *

Kuro joined Aigis the next day during her morning routine, despite her best attempts at being discreet while practicing.

"I want to learn these moves!" he exclaimed, wide black eyes glittering with excitement.

Aigis's first instinct was to deny him, because she herself did not have all her abilities under control, and she had no idea how to train a complete novice in combat. She was programmed with it, and all the other Persona users had experience with combat, so she did not have to train them, only guide them. But those puppy eyes were very hard to resist.

She highly suspected that there was no form to Kuro's combat style, if he even had one, but Aigis asked anyway: "Can you show me what you can do?"

"Sure, Aigis-neesan!" Kuro replied eagerly, then started punching the air from where he was standing – sloppily, before launching into a high kick. He ended up overbalancing, and his eyes widened considerably before slowly falling backwards to the dusty ground. Aigis scrambled to catch him, only to trip over her own feet and landed on the ground with a heavy thud. At least her hand had caught Kuro's head, so he was spared from a concussion.

She let out a little sigh of relief, but the boy needed to learn his lesson.

"Don't do anything that's beyond your limits, Kuro-kun." She reprimanded him gently.

His response was a pout right in her face, cheeks puffing up in indignance. "But you did it so easily just now!"

"I had practice."

"How long?"

The question caught Aigis off guard. How should she answer him?

"…A long time." She finally said after a pregnant pause.

"Then if I practice for a long time I should be able to do it too right?" Kuro pressed.

Aigis had no comeback to that.

She picked herself off the ground, brushing dust off her kimono. "Fine. But we start with the basics first."

Kuro started complaining loudly while still on the ground. "Why can't we do all the cool moves first?" he whined, kicking up a cloud of dust from his sitting position, covering his buzzcut with flecks of sand.

"I did say that it is beyond your limits," Aigis replied, as collected as before, "so you need to practice the basics before you try to do something more difficult." She extended a hand to pull Kuro up to a standing position. "I'm doing the basics too, before I start doing anything harder."

Kuro looked decidedly unhappy with her insistence on basics first, but before he could complain further, Aigis broke off into a run around the house, leaving him to catch up with her. He yelled after her, then took off at his fastest speed before finally running with her, shoulder to shoulder. Aigis slowed down so that they could both maintain a steady speed.

"Hey, Aigis-neesan," Kuro said between pants, "why do you run like that?"

It took a little while for Aigis to notice what he had meant, during which they ran half a circle around the house. She was still running like she had before she died, which meant that her arms were extended behind her as she ran, unlike how most ran while swinging their arms on their sides, which Kuro was doing.

"It makes me run faster." Aigis replied when she found the appropriate words to say, rather than something like _it was programmed into me_.

"Why?"

"Because my body is more streamlined, and that means there is less air drag when I run, so there is less resistance against my body and I can run faster while expending less energy."

Kuro's eyebrows knitted together at that explanation, mouth twitching to a slanted line, and stared at her to continue.

 _Oh, right_. Aigis had to remember that she was talking to a child that barely knew anything about physics. How should she explain it?

She stopped running and he almost crashed into her. Looking around, Aigis eventually picked up a branch and started sketching on the ground, drawing diagrams that she hoped would clear up whatever questions Kuro had in his mind. "See, this happens when you run…"

The lesson lasted well over an hour, destroying her plans for training that day. But Kuro seemed so much happier when he went back into the house for breakfast, sweating all over and excitedly announcing what he learnt from Aigis that morning.

Her plans for training had just been shot to hell for the foreseeable future, hadn't it?

* * *

 **A/N: When I said familiar character, how many of you guessed Unagiya Ikumi, Ichigo's old boss?**

 **I struggled a little with this chapter, writing myself into a corner at one point. I ended up taking a break from the story, then came back with something that could be used to progress the scenes, and wrote out a little more about Aigis's character development. I hope I do this right, because to me, Aigis already had plenty of development - how do you go further from there?**

 **Also, I'm completely out of plot point ideas. Send me some random scenes you want Aigis in, and maybe I'll just put them into the story!**

 **Many thanks to my beta TheMaybellTree, who pointed me in the right direction for writing and helped spot my worst mistakes!**

 **As always, please review! I would ove to hear your opinions, whether good or bad!**


	4. When the Moon Reaches for the Stars

**A/N: This chapter is NOT beta'd. Expect writing errors (and I would love people to kindly point them out so I can improve!)**

* * *

Two months later, Aigis was holding daily education and training sessions every morning before breakfast, so much so that Unagiya rearranged their whole schedule to accommodate the lessons that all the children were eager to attend (and Aigis had found out that Unagiya was aware of her training sessions since the first morning, which embarrassed her because that had been the clumsiest training she had ever done for herself).

"Most of them died when they were toddlers, and there's practically no concept of school here." Unagiya had said, when Aigis asked about their levels of education, too unsure of the children's reactions if she had asked them. "So I'm glad you're teaching them, because I'm no teacher myself, and I beat up everyone when I get frustrated."

Unagiya's beatdowns were explosive, a complete contrast to Mitsuru's ice-cold "executions", but no less terrifying. She still could feel the phantom pain of the poor group of men who had dared to pour sake – and a really low-quality one at that – in front of their house one early morning, waking up the whole household with their drunken shouts and slurs.

Unagiya had screamed at the men, then when they had the audacity to try and hit on her, she snapped.

Two minutes later, all of the men were moaning in pain, while Unagiya patted down her kimono nonchalantly, showing no sign that she had just singlehandedly beat four grown men with just her fists. Aigis was too kindhearted to add on to their pain.

She suspected that the only reason nobody had accused Unagiya for abuse was because her genuine love for children was equally apparent – most of her rage was directed elsewhere.

And because the Shinigami apparently did not police things like abuse. Or police the districts much at all.

When Aigis inquired about the lack of Shinigami in the area, Unagiya said that they only came if a distress signal for a Hollow was sent, and even then, they did not always come on time. Apparently, there had been townspeople eaten by Hollows in the past, and the thought made Aigis grimace.

Morioka came by every week to drop off wood. Unagiya had attempted to kick him in the stomach multiple times, but Aigis blocked almost every one of them. The one that she did not block was because one of the children – a literal eight-year-old boy named Yuuta – tried to block Unagiya's flying kick with the same movements that Aigis had used during their first meeting. She shoved him aside at the last second (there was no way a child would be able to handle the power in Unagiya's legs), and instead got kicked in the stomach herself.

Unagiya thoroughly apologized for that, let her off work for the next few days, then stopped attempting flying kicks to Morioka.

Aigis felt a certain bond with the man who rescued her, and was unwilling to let him go with any kind of injuries, whether being late was his fault or not.

In fact, the constant interaction was somewhat suffocating.

She did like the children – the way they curiously asked her questions, treated her like an invincible big sister despite her repeated insistence that she was not because she did _die_. Their energy was infectious, and Aigis found herself enjoying the new life here, simply teaching, coaching, and making some sort of a living for those that she cared about. But they were also overwhelming, dictating almost all the spare time and energy that she had, not giving her any room to _think_ about the new life that was suddenly shoved onto her. Even though she was getting used to it, a part of her was still very confused. Was she Aigis, the Anti-Shadow weapon, or Aigis, the simple farmgirl for the next hundred years or so?

When Unagiya allowed Aigis to take a break one night after dinner, Aigis took the chance to flee the house for some private time. There was a spot that she liked in the village – an outcrop of rocks that was accessible by a tiny dirt path some ways out in their field. Without light pollution, it was the perfect place to watch the stars.

It reminded her of the Sea of Souls, where Makoto is still guarding the Seal.

She idly recorded the different constellations in her mind, while reflecting on the past two months. There was no sense of purpose – all she had to do was survive, and it was getting easier by the day as she got used to the jobs that she was tasked with. Back when she was alive, Aigis was so busy with work that she often collapsed in her own office from mental exhaustion, but being the leader of the Shadow Operatives was fulfilling – rescuing people, fighting off supernatural threats that all could potentially end the world. Here in Soul Society, without any regular threat (Hollows did not count because of how rare they appeared), it felt empty, as though she was just going through the motions of living, despite her teaching and coaching the kids.

Still, that emptiness was welcoming, in a strange way. Aigis never quite experienced peace in her life, but here, she could relax, not constantly making decisions that may affect the fate of the whole world.

Even at this age, she was still rediscovering herself.

Aigis thought back to Igor – his last tarot card reading for her. Since arriving in Soul Society, Aigis did not have anymore dreams about the Velvet Room, but Igor's words to her are still fresh in her mind.

He said that her past would be important, and that her bonds is enough to overcome her upcoming trials, but so far she had not seen a single hint about that "trial" he had mentioned. Usually, they came quickly.

Unless he referred to living in Soul Society, but that seemed unlikely. Or perhaps joining the Shinigami would give her more resources to work with, as Unagiya had mentioned once ("They act like snobs because they became powerful and wealthy enough to own good stuff."), but there were a few factors that prevented it – mainly because the central governing body of the Shinigami sounded uncomfortably like the politicians that she had to deal with after the Shadow Operatives officially merged with the government. Politics was not Aigis's strong suit, and she was not going to do something that she disliked in the afterlife.

A crunch of shifting gravel startled Aigis, but it turned out to be Unagiya, walking along the same gravel path Aigis was walking on before. Unagiya raised a hand in a friendly wave, then sat down beside Aigis. The forest green kimono Unagiya was wearing made her almost invisible in the night, and Aigis wished that she at least retained some of her robotic functions, such as night vision. She stared a little, then recovered.

"What are the children doing?" Aigis asked.

Unagiya waved a hand dismissively. "I put them to bed. Don't worry, the town's pretty safe. Nothing's gonna happen to them."

Aigis gave a relieved nod, then went back to stargazing.

"I didn't know you liked watching the stars." Unagiya said.

"I didn't know before either." Aigis replied. The intense light pollution of the cities that she was used to meant that she hardly saw stars in her free time, and whenever she ended up somewhere outside the city, it was for work, so there was no time to appreciate them.

"Was the house too much for you?" Unagiya then asked. "The kids love climbing all over you, even though you look like you really want to get away from them."

"…Was it really that obvious?" Aigis asked back, ducking her head a little.

Unagiya gave a chuckle at her reaction. "Your face never really shows anything, but it's pretty obvious from your body language. You tend to lean away from them."

Aigis's face heated up from how easily she was figured out.

"It's fine if you feel that way though." Unagiya patted Aigis's back. "The kids don't really have a sense of personal space, but to them, you're family."

"Did the children remember their own families before they died?" Aigis asked.

Unagiya gave a thoughtful hum, before replying. "None of them really do – they were either too young, or have damaged memories."

"Damaged memories?"

"Some souls come here with a large chunk of their memories missing. I don't really know why, but they adapt."

"How do you deal with…" Aigis waved her hand towards the house, "all this? The children and the farmwork?"

Unagiya's endurance was amazing, showering each child with the same amount of affection and care that Aigis was struggling to keep up with, showing a gentle side that was never shown to adults.

"I had a son when I was alive, y'know." Unagiya smiled at a ghost memory. "And lots of teenagers to take care of when they worked with me."

"Teenagers?"

"Part-timers. I ran an odd-jobs shop."

Aigis's eyes widened slightly. Odd-jobs shops were pretty much extinct when she died. The last time she had seen one was around two hundred years ago. It meant that Unagiya was at least that old, or probably even older.

Unagiya noticed it. "What? Surprised?" she asked with something that looked like a Cheshire cat grin, one that promised pain if Aigis answered it wrongly.

She ignored it.

"I did not know you were that old." Aigis said.

A fist moved towards her eye at lightning speeds, but she instinctively leaned backwards, letting the fist shoot harmlessly past her nose with millimeters to spare. One hand moved back to brace herself, while the other swung outwards in a chopping motion, stopping just before it reached Unagiya's neck. They held their position.

"Did you just call me old?" Unagiya bared her teeth.

"Perhaps not in looks," Aigis replied with the same neutral expression that was usually plastered on her face, "but definitely in mind." She hoped the slight twitching in the corner of her mouth did not give it away.

Unagiya slumped, sighing in defeat.

"You're pretty brutal, you know that?" she said, returning her fist to where it was before at her side.

"So I've been told." Aigis replied, also moving back to her original seated position.

"So how about you?" Unagiya asked, shifting back to their original topic. "Did you have any memories of your family?"

Aigis was very reluctant on revealing any information about her past, but she figured that Unagiya earned it.

"…I have a sister," she began slowly, going over her memories, "And a very close group of friends that I consider as family, though they passed away long before I did."

Unagiya's face softened into a smile.

"So your sister is still alive?" she asked.

Was she? Aigis had no way of being sure, but her instincts told her that Labrys was probably still alive.

"I think so." She finally said.

She really hoped so too.

When Unagiya failed to reply, Aigis turned to look at her face. Unagiya was still gazing at the stars, but her eyes were far away, reminiscing about something in the past.

"You remind me of someone I knew back when I was alive." She finally said. "He had a sister as well – two of them actually, they were twins – and he doted on them even more than their own dad did. He also had a group of friends so close to him, you would be forgiven if you thought they were family."

It did indeed sound like the Shadow Operatives.

"How was he himself like?" Aigis found herself asking, curious to know about the man that seemed so similar to her – and to many of the Wild Cards she met over the years too.

Unagiya's face soured immediately.

"The worst worker I've ever seen!" she ranted, "Sloppy, cancels on a moment's notice, and even tried to run away from me a few times! You're an angel compared to him!" She continued her rant, peppered with the occasional expletive that Aigis was sure Unagiya would never say in front of the children.

Aigis cracked a grin at the description. _Definitely not_ like any Shadow Operative member. Anyone who attempted that got Mitsuru's full wrath, Bufudyne and all.

"But he also seemed like he was under a lot of pressure for a while. He came to me for advice a few times, even though I think it should be his father doing it, and he acts like a punk, but is a good boy deep down." Unagiya calmed down and continued, looking much more thoughtful, "He mellowed out over the years, you know. Last I remember of him, he was doing fine as a doctor."

"What happened?" Aigis asked. The story sounded incomplete.

"Oh, I died." Unagiya said lightly. "Lost track of him."

That explained the abrupt ending.

Aigis finally had the chance of asking something that she caught earlier. "Did he work with you before?"

"He was a part-timer at my shop."

That statement was surprisingly common amongst Wild Card users. Almost every single Wild Card she met had worked part-time before. The range of jobs they took on was staggeringly wide, but they all did mundane work, mostly to help their team afford the weapons and armor they used to fight Shadows. The exceptions all had very good reasons for not working, herself included.

"Would you want to meet him here then, in Soul Society?" she asked.

That seemed to give Unagiya pause, as she mulled over the question, her face contorting into a surprising variety of knotted eyebrows, flared nostrils, and twitching lips. She finally settled on a frown.

"I wouldn't," she replied, looking thoughtfully at the stars, "but I would wish him well. He was like an annoying, but endearing little brother to me."

 _Whoever this mystery person was, he would have been a great Wild Card_ , Aigis decided.

A chilly gust of wind blew across the cliff they were sitting on, alerting them to the late night. Aigis involuntarily shivered a little in her thin striped kimono, hugging herself tighter in an attempt to retain her body heat.

She never had that problem while she was a robot, though she recalled a few times when her joints froze from lack of cold resistance. It happened in Antarctica, and she ended up having to replace some parts to continue her mission.

"Guess it's late, huh?" Unagiya said cheerily, stretching out her legs that had been folded beneath her before standing up and offering a helping hand to Aigis. "Let's go back and sleep. Long day tomorrow."

Even though every day was the same, in Aigis's opinion.

Still, she accepted the outstretched hand, and wrapped her kimono closer to her, trudging down the gravel path.

* * *

"Mine's bigger!"

"No, mine's bigger!"

"Liar!"

"You're the one who's blind!"

"What's going on here?" Aigis asked, drawn out by the arguing noises of the two children out of the front door. She was sleepier than usual after the talk with Unagiya last night, and she rubbed her eyes before squinting against the morning sunshine streaming into the house. Both of them turned to look at her the same time.

Hiroki was a wiry little boy who appeared to be around ten, but was actually twenty. He had shaggy brown hair that almost covered his eyes, but was loud and fierce, being one of the kids that Unagiya had the most trouble controlling. His rival Ryou was around the same age, but he looked completely different, with his spiky, dirty blond hair that glinted in the morning sunshine. When Aigis looked closer, she saw each of them holding what appeared to be a floating, glowing blue ball, but the angle of the sunlight was making it difficult to make out exactly what it was.

"Aigis-neesan!" they both cried out at the same time, "Mine's bigger, isn't it?"

Even their tones were the same. Aigis squinted at the balls, trying to make out what it was.

"Um, before I start comparing," she began, holding her hands up to stop the boys from cornering her against the house walls, "what is that in your hands?"

Hiroki answered first before Ryou could open his mouth. "It's our reiryoku!"

"Your reiryoku?" Aigis's eyes widened. She did remember multiple people commenting on her power, and Unagiya mentioning that everyone living in the house has some power, but she never knew that it could be manifested. "You can actually make it appear?"

"Ikumi-san taught us how to!" Ryou piped up, effectively cutting Hiroki off from talking. He shoved the hand with the glowing ball of energy right in Aigis's face, causing her to lean back. "See? Mine's bigger, right?"

Aigis took both of their wrists with a firm but gentle hold, then lowered their hands away from her face before she got blinded by the light. She crouched down to the same level as their eyesight, before scrutinizing the glowing balls of energy that they each held. "Well, let's see…"

Apart from becoming human after arriving at Soul Society, Aigis had not felt that this world was any different from the living world. However, with the two balls of energy so close to her, Aigis felt something within her for the first time since her arrival – something that felt vaguely like the power emitted by a _Persona_. It was just a faint buzz beneath her skin, a slight discomfort from their direction, but she finally started to understand what the residents here referred to as power. However, the power felt incomplete, as if someone had summoned a Persona, but kept it from materializing. The energy was weak, but it had the potential to become anything.

As the seconds ticked by, the boys started to fidget, their expectant eyes boring into Aigis. She caught a glance, then quickly went back to assessing the size of their energy. Both of them were about the same size as a ping pong ball, and the wispy edges make it difficult to tell which one was actually bigger.

"Does a bigger glowing ball mean that you have more reiryoku?" Aigis asked, just for confirmation.

"That's what Ikumi-san told me!" Ryou said proudly as Aigis stared at his ball of energy, though at the same time she noticed that her hands were starting to feel wet, despite the somewhat chilly atmosphere. Did the reiryoku ball emit heat?

One look into the boys' faces informed Aigis of the actual situation. Both of them still kept their fierce grins as they tried to one-up each other, but the grin was a touch too tight at the edges, the temperature of their body was steadily rising, and sweat was starting to form at their hairlines, though it was less obvious with Hiroki since his hair covered up most of it. Despite their body temperatures rising, they were shivering and starting to breathe in small gasps, even though they both were trying to maintain a normal breathing pattern.

Did they expend too much energy trying to maintain the reiryoku ball?

"Okay boys, stop." Aigis commanded, letting go of their wrists. Both dismissed their balls of reiryoku and dropped their arms to their sides, taking deep breaths of air as if they just narrowly escaped drowning in water.

"To answer your question," she began, "your reiryoku balls are pretty much the same size."

The boys started groaning loudly, but Aigis carried on regardless of their protests. "However, what makes someone strong does not come from their raw power. It depends on what they can do with the power that they have."

It was universally agreed on that the Wild Cards were the strongest combatants when it came to exterminating Shadows, but if they were restricted to just one Persona, they were about as strong as any of their teammates. Even robots like her, with her overwhelming firepower and Persona abilities, were just about equal in combat to any other experienced Persona user, aside from being a little tougher than usual, not that Shadows usually cared. Fuuka was considered one of the most resilient Persona users when she was alive despite the fact that her Persona was not even _combat related_ , because she owned one of the few Personas with strong navigating abilities. Without people like her around, Aigis may have died a long time ago.

The best Persona users were not those who had the most raw power, but those who used their power to the fullest.

Both boys watched Aigis with wide, wondrous eyes, trying to process what she had said. Their mouths were slightly open, and she felt a tinge of regret for suddenly springing something heavy on them, before their morning classes had even started.

Before their childhood was even over.

Well, they had plenty of time to figure it out.

"You do not have to worry about it right now." Aigis smiled reassuringly, ruffling their hair with both of her hands affectionately. "It's something that even adults like me forget about. So just think it over, and let me know whenever you understand, alright?"

Hiroki and Ryou nodded, relaxing their faces into a grin.

Hopefully that sentence would stay in their hearts for a long time to come.

"Now go and eat breakfast." Aigis herded them into the house. "We can't have lessons on an empty stomach."

* * *

Aigis took the chance to ask Unagiya about reiryoku when they were washing the dishes after breakfast. "How do you materialize reiryoku?" she asked, passing a freshly-scrubbed bowl to Unagiya.

Unagiya raised an eyebrow at the sudden question, but accepted the bowl without missing a beat. "Where did you hear about that?" she asked.

"Hiroki-kun and Ryou-kun told me that you taught them how to." Aigis replied.

"Ah yeah," Unagiya mumbled thoughtfully as she put the bowl away, "I learnt it from a Shinigami who was visiting the town once. He was here for a minor Hollow extermination after it ate one of the townsfolk."

Aigis grimaced. Monsters eating humans alive was still an uncomfortable topic for her, mainly because even the worst Shadows did not eat humans alive and leave a mess afterwards. The graphic image was something that she preferred not to store in her memory.

"Do the other children know how to do it?" she asked.

"Most of them do. Some can do it better than others though."

Aigis nodded at that. Her lesson plans are going to change today.

* * *

When the children filed out of the house for their morning lessons, instead of being greeted by the sight of Aigis doing her daily warm-ups, they saw her seated on the ground, watching them expectantly. She patted the ground around her, inviting them to sit down, and they did, jostling around each other until they were seated in a rough circle. They were confused – Aigis was someone who stuck to a routine, so to break that was unusual for her. The children stared at her with their eyebrows raised, though Hiroki and Ryou seemed to be more interested in staring daggers at each other rather. Kuro was fidgeting in his crossed-leg position, his fingers fiddling with the dust on the ground absentmindedly.

Aigis pondered on how to start. It had been a long time since she learned something new – there was always something to discover during the first hundred and fifty years or so of her life, but after that she began to form algorithms on human development, and with almost nobody treating her like a human anymore, all new information was directly downloaded into her.

She did not consider that as "learning", despite what the researchers said. She considered it as "upgrading".

Humans did not do anything perfectly on the first try. They needed to experience it repeatedly, constantly refining their methods until they found out what worked best for them. That was what Aigis considered as "learning".

Her body was almost humming with energy, at the excitement of finally learning something new after so long, though Aigis did not show it. She pondered a little more on how to breach the topic, while Megumi's lips trembled a little and her hands clenched a little tighter on her kimono, before forcibly loosening it. Yuuta's foot was twitching underneath his cross-legged position.

Well, subtlety was never Aigis's strength anyway. Might as well go straight to the main topic.

"Can you all teach me how to manifest reiatsu?"

The children all blinked at the same time, to Aigis's amusement, before their faces seemed to illuminate the shadows of the house covering them, as their eyes sparkled with excitement.

"Yay! We get to be teachers!" Megumi squealed as she relaxed her hold on her kimono, all traces of nervousness gone.

The children began talking over one another, excitedly going through the steps to manifest reiatsu in a jumbled mess, though Aigis did not catch any information whatsoever through the din. She held her hands out to stop them before they got into a shouting match.

"Alright, stop, stop!" she yelled over the children as loudly as she could. The voices died out in an instant, and Aigis could hear the songbirds in the early morning town again. "Back up. Who's the best at reiatsu manifestation?"

The children looked amongst themselves uncomfortably, though Megumi was the first to act. She quietly pointed at the girl behind her, hidden away in the shadows and her black hair. One by one, the other children slowly pointed to her, some with disgruntled faces indicating that they were clearly unhappy with their choice.

Hitomi was quiet, unassuming. She was perhaps the shyest person Aigis had ever met, clinging onto Unagiya's kimono for her dear life and hiding behind her larger figure the first time Aigis met Hitomi. She was the only one to not join in every lesson that Aigis taught, and Hitomi only joined in after Aigis noticed her intense interest in her diagrams after lessons. One day, Aigis caught Hitomi drawing an impressive sketch of the field with only a tree branch and the dusty ground behind their home, finally allowing Aigis to coax her into coming for lessons, for her own education.

She turned out to be an attentive listener even when she was doodling on the ground, answering questions with a tiny, meek whisper. Aigis made sure to praise Hitomi whenever she answered a question currently, and gently correct her when she was wrong, to try and break her out of her shell. It's been working…somewhat, because now she was answering questions louder, but still tended to cower behind the other children.

Aigis quirked an eyebrow at Hitomi, but soon pushed that eyebrow down. "Hitomi," she smiled, careful to not get too close lest she decided to run away, "can you teach me?"

Hitomi looked absolutely terrified, her black eyes widening, letting out a high-pitched squeak before shuffling even closer to Megumi's back.

Perhaps asking her to suddenly teach was a little too much? Aigis tried to keep the disappointed and slightly guilty frown off her face, keeping it at the neutral slight smile that she had before.

Megumi was gently patting Hitomi on her back, trying to coax her out. "Come on," she murmured, "it's going to be alright. Nobody is going to make fun of you, and it's fine if you make a mistake."

Hitomi only buried herself further in Megumi's kimono, her hands clenched so firmly onto the light yellow fabric that it threatened to tear. Megumi looked a little concerned for her clothes, but she kept consoling the younger girl.

"It's alright, Megumi-chan," Aigis said when it became clear that Hitomi was not moving from her position, "I do not think that she is quite ready yet." Megumi kept patting Hitomi's back, but her focus was on Aigis as she haltingly started her explanation.

"Reikyoku is the amount of spiritual energy in one, while reiatsu is the energy that is being used." Megumi began. "To form a ball of reiatsu, you just have to force it out from within." She held out her hand, where a pinprick ball of light began forming above her palms, illuminating her face in a pale blue light.

Aigis frowned a little at the vague instructions. Did every child here learn how to do that with these directions? She had to hand it to them if they did, because it did not give her a place to start.

Still, it was worth a try. She held out her palm face up and closed her eyes, imagining energy flowing from her core – a rather robotic one that looked suspiciously like her Papillon Heart, she noted with some amusement – to her palm. It felt rather different from a Persona summoning, because there was no sense of urgency, no sense of 'fight or flight' that accompanied every time she summoned Pallas Athena. This was just an exercise.

Aigis snapped her eyes open when someone – it turned out to be Kuro – shrieked and scrambled away from their makeshift circle as fast as his legs would allow. The others were also edging away slowly from her, and one look told her why.

The reiatsu formed, all right, but it was formless and spreading out quickly. Her first instinct was to exert control over it, but that just caused the reiatsu to go wild, shooting out in all directions. Her breaths became short and chopped as she hurriedly imagined shutting her valves, and the blobs of reiatsu exploded in a shower of blue sparks.

Disaster averted, Aigis forced her breathing to slow down to normal, as the children recovered from their shock and slowly crawled back to their makeshift circle. She offered a sheepish smile in apology. "I guess I need to work on this." She said, taking a deep breath and preparing to try again.

"Wrong image." A whisper interrupted Aigis's attempt as she looked around to spot who had said that. Megumi's kimono ruffled as Hitomi timidly crawled out from behind.

"Wrong image?" Aigis questioned, watching Hitomi with a small measure of amazement, even though she was still clinging onto Megumi's sleeve. Hitomi shifted to sit seiza style, stretching out her free palm.

"There's a trick to it." She mumbled, her voice barely above a whisper so Aigis had to strain to hear what she was saying. "You imagine a space, then a circle within that space, filled with the darkest colour you can think of." Pressure started to slowly build up around her, though it was weak enough that it did not crush anyone. "Then imagine throwing yourself in."

Her palm lit up in a brilliant blue as a football-sized sphere of reiatsu formed, held steady by her will.

The circle was silent. A few seconds later, Hitomi was cowering behind Megumi again after she realized that everyone was staring at her, dismissing her reiatsu with a whimper.

"Amazing…" Yuuta breathed, still mesmerized. Aigis privately agreed.

"Thank you, Hitomi-chan." Aigis smiled warmly. "That was a great explanation." She closed her eyes and lifted her palm again for another attempt.

An empty space. She imagined a blank wall, painted pure white.

A circle. She imagined a circle that would comfortably fit her body, coloured in the deep black of the Shadows that she had fought.

One deep breath.

She threw herself in.

Light through her eyelids and soft gasps prompted Aigis to open her eyes again, before immediately squinting from the brightness.

The reiatsu ball she had formed was almost twice the size of her head, glowing with a gentle pulse that followed her heartbeat. In their little corner, it was even brighter than the sun.

"Ooh!" Aigis turned around to see Unagiya's grinning face sticking out of a window, observing their class. She struck a thumbs-up. "That's the biggest one I've ever seen!"

"I knew it," Kuro pumped his fist up into the air, "Aigis-neesan is the strongest!"

That elicited a laugh from the other children, while they enthusiastically agreed with the statement. Aigis wanted to correct them, say that she definitely was not the strongest, but held her tongue. The children were way too cute as they laughed and joked around, each holding out their own little spheres of reiatsu and playing around with them.

Hitomi was still holding onto Megumi's kimono, but hesitantly looked up as Aigis approached her. She crouched down and gently put a hand on Hitomi's head.

"Thank you for teaching me, Hitomi-chan." Aigis said, smiling as she ruffled Hitomi's soft hair.

The hesitant, but radiant smile that she got in return was Aigis's best reward.

* * *

 **A/N: Before I start, well uh...**

 **Sorry?**

 **I had a really bad case of writer's block (this chapter was fighting me 75% of the way), then school happened. I'm halfway through the semester now, and the workload is also getting worse, but hey, at least I'm enjoying my classes!**

 **In other news, I'm looking for a new beta. I need someone who can spot my writing mistakes and have a good grasp of the personalities of characters from both the Persona series and Bleach. Most importantly, I need someone whom I can bounce off plot ideas with, because that's my biggest obstacle right now.**

 **The next chapter will be the last slice-of-life chapter before the first "arc" kicks off! The plot is still a little iffy at the moment, but I'm working on the details.**


	5. This Strange Feeling

The first winter passed by peacefully.

The second winter, not so much. Because Aigis got sick.

Ikumi sighed internally as she pressed another wet towel against Aigis's forehead. She thought that the Shinigami who brought her to Soul Society said something like "you won't get sick here", but obviously that was untrue, wasn't it?

Just one more reason to not trust them.

From what Ikumi understood after Aigis came back one late autumn evening with Yuuta and Kuro under her arms, all of them looking like soaked birds, the boys had gone into the forest to play and accidentally fell into the freezing river. If Aigis had not found them while helping Morioka out, they may have drowned.

After giving all three of them spare clothes and dry towels to wrap themselves with, Ikumi had given the boys a stern lecture on safety while playing around, peppered with a few explosive shouts and rants. By the time she was done, Aigis had already finished cooking dinner.

The next day, she insisted on working, even though Ikumi had given all three of them a day off to recover. Ikumi couldn't say no, not before those determined eyes, and she _did_ need the help – winter was rolling in and there were still some crops to be harvested. The boys guiltily helped around the house to make up for their foolishness.

The day after, Aigis didn't get out of bed.

Or rather, she _couldn't_.

Hiroki, who had been sleeping closest to Aigis that night, told Ikumi in a moment of uncharacteristic panic that Aigis was running a high fever, which prompted Ikumi to drop everything she was doing to check. Aigis was barely conscious, muttering about work, her cheeks flushed with heat.

Ikumi needed to get farmwork done, so she instead asked Touma to take care of Aigis in the meantime. She trusted Touma, because he had stayed with her the longest – the first child to come in when she was living by herself, asking for a share of food in the freezing winter. She took pity on him, letting him stay as long as he helped around the house. He was down to earth, acting as a big brother for all the other children that came after, which suited his fluffy light brown hair and warm brown eyes. When Ikumi was done with her work, she took over to care for Aigis, feeding her hot water and porridge in the rare moments that she was lucid.

This continued for two weeks.

Aigis's fever only started coming down two days ago, her cheeks flushed a perpetual pink hue. She tossed and turned in her sleep, disturbing anyone who slept near her that night – except when she had nightmares.

Ikumi didn't even know that Aigis had nightmares at first, until she stumbled out to teach on some mornings with heavier steps than usual and the faintest eyebags under her eyes, visible only under the early morning sun. She jumped at surprises, and seemed to view the children with an air of melancholy that was hardly present in her usual self. It was a mystery at first – it wasn't like Aigis was lacking sleep since she went to bed at very reasonable times – but Ikumi had a faint moment of horror when she was about to sleep one night next to Aigis and instead found the poor girl completely still and _not breathing_.

Ikumi didn't remember anything for the rest of the night, until sunlight peeked through the closed windows and she found herself nursing a nasty bruise on her stomach. She only pieced together what happened when Aigis looked uncharacteristically bashful and nervous around her that day, then gave a sincere apology later that evening. Ikumi waved it off, but made a mental note to run whenever she has to wake Aigis up again from her nightmares.

With her ill and bedridden, Aigis barely had the energy to do more than jerk violently when Ikumi woke Aigis up from her nightmares, and before she could say anything, Ikumi shoved water or porridge down her throat. She already knew what Aigis would say – an apology of some sort, for troubling her. Ikumi didn't want to hear that, not after Aigis had already stayed with them for over two years.

It was times like this that she missed the conveniences that she had while alive – access to medicine and professional care. Whenever Kaoru was injured or sick, she could just barge her way into the Kurosaki clinic to get a checkup or medicine, and he would get better within a few days. In Soul Society, modern medicine simply did not _exist_. There were no facilities to make them, and since Ikumi had never seen anyone fall sick until Aigis came along, there was no need for it either. Ikumi didn't trust her own knowledge of herbs to help, so all she could do was hope that Aigis would get well soon.

"Mama?"

A tug on her sleeve startled Ikumi out of her musings, and she turned to see Kousuke holding onto the brown fabric. In the candlelight, his red hair looked like fire, while his brown eyes almost glowed yellow. He rubbed the sleep out of his eyes, before holding out his arms.

Ikumi was fairly sure that it was way past Kousuke's bedtime. In fact, she clearly remembered putting him to bed two hours ago. Still, she smiled and picked his tiny figure up, before depositing him gently in her lap. He squirmed a little to make himself comfortable, then settled down to watch Aigis.

Kousuke was their newest addition to the household before Aigis came. As the youngest child physically, he waddled around and tripped adorably in the most random of places, and also needed the most care. He immediately latched onto Ikumi as a mother, a role that she accepted without question since she was already considered the kids' mother. Out of concern for his physical development, Kousuke was the only child that Ikumi did not assign farmwork to, but he picked it up after a year of observing the others anyway. Even then, she never let him work alone, always asking either Touma or Megumi to watch over him, working on the easier jobs, such as sowing seeds.

"Is Aigis-neechan going to be okay?" Kousuke asked, face scrunched up in a worried frown.

Ikumi didn't know.

"Don't worry about it." She said anyway, wrapping him closer to her so he wouldn't feel the slight traces of winter in their otherwise warm home. "Aigis will be get better soon."

"I want her to teach me again…" Kousuke said, hints of a whine on his lips, but too worried to say it.

"I do too." Ikumi replied softly, a forlorn look in her eyes.

It was jarring, how empty the days became after Aigis fell sick. Her morning lessons were routine for over two years, so having them disrupted so suddenly was problematic for everyone. The children were restless, hungering for that seemingly bottomless pit of knowledge that she possessed and of the friendly little spars that kept them pleasantly alert for farmwork. Even the girls had joined in on them, though Megumi is the only one who participated regularly. Hitomi formed a weird teacher-student dynamic with Aigis, with the former occasionally teaching the latter how to control her reiatsu when it threatened to crush everyone in the house, and Aigis returned the favour by teaching Hitomi everything under the sun, from literature to advanced physics.

Aigis had taken special care with Kousuke, putting together a specialised curriculum to account for his younger age. It was endearing, watching her fumble around trying to shelter him from the crueler aspects of life (not that she didn't do it for the older kids – she just dropped more life lessons for those older eyes that were at odds with their physical age), while giving him the tools to survive – knowledge to defend himself.

Aigis really knew how to guide and teach people, but there was a certain kind of awkwardness, a slight stiltedness as she taught, like she knew what the steps of teaching was, but the _audience_ was different. She had to stop and rewind herself several times when she first started, when she went off on tangents about theories too advanced for the children to follow, as if she expected them to follow her thoughts. The same went for combat training, which resulted in several bruises and cuts before she learned to rein in her strength.

Other than that though, combat training was fascinating to watch, because of how paradoxical Aigis's style was. Her style emphasised efficiency – for someone so mild-mannered, she was _ruthless_. She used everything around her – leaves, dust, buttons, pebbles to teach the children on what to expect in a fight. Yet, even within her otherwise minimal movement, there were some weirdly useless moves. She still recalled one early spar where she had raised her hands at Kuro, fingers trained at his chest, while she flipped in the air with the grace of a dolphin. After she landed, the hands quickly retreated to her sides, and the spar continued without incident.

Ikumi often wondered what kind of life Aigis led in her previous life. She obviously was familiar with combat, fighting in life-or-death situations instead of treating it as a sport, because her strikes were a little too fast, a little too deadly to be used for something harmless. There was something deep in those aquamarine blue eyes, a tiredness that Ikumi was sure no teenage girl should have.

"Aigis-neechan?" Kousuke's small voice broke Ikumi out of her musings – she was that close to falling asleep – and focused on Aigis instead.

Oh.

Ikumi was sure Aigis was lightly snoring just a moment ago, but now there was no noise in the environment save for the rustle of fabric from a fidgeting Kousuke. Ikumi moved him out of her lap as gently as possible, then shook Aigis awake.

The sudden jerk was expected, but it was Kousuke's first time seeing it, and he scrambled back in shock. The towel on her forehead fell onto the futon, soaking it with cold water. Ikumi quickly picked it up before it could soak the futon more, then dunked it into the bowl of cold water. One blue eye opened blearily, the pupil constricting and dilating rapidly for a few seconds before it settled down.

"There's no monsters here." Ikumi smiled.

Aigis opened her mouth to say something, but thought better and closed it again, instead just snuggling deeper into her own blanket.

"Do you want some water?" Ikumi asked, hoping to occupy Aigis's mouth with something before she put herself down again. She nodded.

Ikumi came back to Kousuke attempting to climb over Aigis, while she weathered it as much as she could. She sat up when she noticed Ikumi, and murmured a hoarse "thanks" after taking the cup of hot water. Her eyes were downcast, not meeting any of their gazes.

"Aigis-neechan," Kousuke said, still perched on Aigis's legs. She jolted slightly at his voice, body tense and muscles locked for a split second before she relaxed them again. "When can you teach us again?"

"As soon as I get better." She replied, ruffling Kousuke's hair. Him sitting on her legs didn't seem to bother her, but Ikumi dragged him to her side anyway after Aigis paused to take a sip of her water. "It won't be long now."

"But it's been two weeks." Kousuke whined.

"It will be fine." Aigis smiled. "I'm already feeling better."

The smile looked brittle, and it was so obvious when her voice came out in a rough rasp rather than the usual smooth melody, but Ikumi held out her hope that Aigis will get well enough soon. At least she was getting better – she was moving, even if she was only sitting upright in her futon without support.

Aigis drained her cup and set it aside. "Kousuke, you should be sleeping." She chided gently.

Kousuke made a face that seemed like a cross between guilt and pout, so Ikumi tucked him back into his futon before he made a scene. "Aigis is right." She said gently. She couldn't blame him for being worried about Aigis, but disrupting her rest was not the right way to help. "You want her to get better soon, so you should let her rest, okay?"

"Okay…" This time, the pout was quite evident. Still, he was snoring within two minutes.

"You should go and sleep too, Unagiya-san." Aigis said as she laid down again to curl inside her futon. "You still have work to do tomorrow, correct? I will be alright. I don't think I will have any more nightmares tonight."

It didn't reassure Ikumi.

She idly wondered how Aigis dealt with them before Ikumi found out – how she must have suffered silently. More importantly, she wondered what the nightmares were about. The few times she tried to coax the information out of Aigis were slammed down rather swiftly, because she distracted Ikumi with work, or dodged the question entirely. It wasn't subtle – Aigis must have gone through something traumatic for her to have frequent nightmares, and Ikumi hated herself for not realizing it sooner, for not being able to help.

For being absolutely useless.

And now Aigis was trying to reassure _Ikumi._ It was supposed to be the other way around.

"I'll be fine." Was all she could manage.

Ikumi only slept after hearing Aigis's soft snores. It took two hours.

* * *

Aigis woke up to someone clinking ceramic bowls near her.

It was almost impossible to wake up naturally in the household, because even when the children tried to be quiet, someone would inevitably bang into something or the old floorboards will creak, making a noise that was loud enough for her to wake up to. She was either the first one awake, or someone would make enough noise to stir her. She found out a year after staying in the house that she was a light sleeper – because sleep felt markedly different as a human, compared to when she was a robot. She only woke up when someone hit the emergency alarms installed in her, or when she wanted to. Now, every little noise felt like the emergency alarm. It grated her nerves, but she also knew that it was not any of the children's fault.

So she weathered it as much as she could.

It was not that bad when she was healthy and usually the first one up in the household, but it made sleeping in impossible even if others wanted her to.

Aigis found the source of clinking ceramic bowls to come from Touma, who was sitting next to her, stirring his breakfast. His eyes lit up when she finally focused on him as she blinked the weariness away as much as she could.

"Ah, Nee-san, you're awake!" Touma smiled, radiant from the faint winter sunlight shining through the window. "Do you want some porridge?"

"Thanks, Touma-kun." Aigis said. "Where are the others?"

The house was unusually empty, and she marveled a little at how the rowdy children could sneak outside without her waking up at some point.

"It snowed this morning, so Kousuke, Ryou, Hiroki and Kuro are out playing. Hitomi, Yuuta and Megumi went with Ikumi-san to the town square to run some errands." Touma replied, listing off each child with his fingers.

Aigis looked outside. The ground was indeed covered in a soft blanket of the white fluff.

Touma handed her a bowl of steaming porridge from the kitchen, complete with a few kernels of corn on top. She gave her thanks again, then slowly sipped the porridge, savouring the slight sweetness of the rice. Touma himself took out a sewing set and some torn clothes – she remembered Hiroki tearing them a few days ago – and started to work on mending the holes. Touma worked swiftly, weaving his needle through the fabric and binding the hole together, until the hole looked like it was never torn to begin with.

There was something fascinating about the art of sewing, how Touma made it look effortless, almost into an art form. Aigis supposed that maybe Pallas Athena was influencing her subtly – there was the story about her and Arachne after all. She never had the time to learn delicate arts like that when she was alive, with every waking moment filled with paperwork and missions. Back then, she also tore through her clothes on a monthly basis, because almost none of them were meant to withstand Orgia Mode.

It was a little embarrassing, how she requested new suits from Kanji every month to the point that he expected it.

"When did you learn how to sew?"

Touma looked up, a needle half sticking out of the fabric. "Ikumi-san taught me, when I first tore my clothes and she saw my terrible job of covering it up. I dug out a large needle and some thread while she was out and tried to sew the tear together." Touma replied, smiling at the memory. He traced a finger over the tear of the kimono that he was currently working on in a large zigzag pattern, carefully avoiding the needle tip. "My stitch literally looked like that. She laughed really hard then tore the stitches apart, and taught me how to stich it together properly."

He resumed his sewing, wrapping the thread around the tear, and finishing it off with a knot and a snip from a pair of steel scissors. Aigis finished her porridge, then tried to get out of bed to wash the dishes. Touma pressed her down back into her futon.

"Please leave the dishes to me, Nee-san." He said hastily, grabbing the bowl without much care. "You should be resting in bed, not taking care of all of us!"

"You have been taking care of me plenty for the past two weeks." She retorted weakly. Her throat felt better than last night, but it was still somewhat raw.

"Yes, and you've been taking care of us for the past two years." He snapped back playfully. "That was my job, you know."

Only Touma could manage that delicate balance between resentfulness and playfulness, guilt-tripping her back to her futon.

"If I can't get out of bed, then can you at least teach me how to sew?" Aigis pleaded.

Touma blinked.

"I don't know how to do everything in the world, Touma-kun." She emphasised.

"Well…let me wash the bowl first."

* * *

"I can't believe this…" Touma heaved a sigh, looking at the admittedly decent sewing job that Aigis managed. There were a few uneven patches, a spot with too much thread wound in the hole, but for a first try, it was surprisingly good. Then he turned his focus to the actual problem. "How did you prick yourself so many times and not notice?"

She shrugged nonchalantly. The first prick had been a mild shock, when her attention wavered from a cough and the needle did not move the way she wanted. It felt like a tiny jab of static electricity – sharp, but not serious enough to warrant attention. She continued sewing and dealing with the occasional jabs with her usual stoic face.

Then again, something that warranted enough attention for her, as a robot, was usually broken limbs.

"It did not feel like anything serious." Aigis replied.

"What do you mean 'not serious'?! You poked your finger through with the needle!"

"It didn't hurt."

" _What?_ "

A teen boy should not be able to pitch his voice higher than a girl, but Touma managed it.

Really, the only thing Aigis was embarrassed about right now was how she stained the yukata she was fixing with a little blood. It would wash out, but they did not have the liberty of washing their clothes frequently right now. She hoped Kuro would not mind.

"You're not going to touch anything." Touma said darkly, his voice still straining a little from unintentionally going into the soprano range. "Just…don't move." He scampered off to the cabinets in the kitchen, and returned with clean bandages and a small bowl of warm water.

"Normally, anyone who pricked themselves would at least flinch, Nee-san." He said, scrubbing her fingers gently to get rid of the residue flakes of blood. "I cried the first time I did that."

"Nothing wrong with that." Aigis replied. "I guess I just have a higher pain tolerance."

"From all the training?"

She gave a non-committal hum.

"Really, what did you do when you were alive?" He asked as he started winding bandages around her fingertips.

"Would you know of the job anyway?" Aigis asked back. Touma was easily over a hundred years old – a lot of new jobs were created since he died.

Touma paused wrapping the bandages. "You can describe it for me. I always understood your classes."

Before she could answer, he jumped as the front door banged open.

"We're back! Oh Aigis-chan, you're up! And what's going on here?" Unagiya cheerfully announced her presence with gusto, saving Aigis from having to come up with excuses to cover up her job before she died. Megumi walked into the house with a smile, while Hitomi noticeably perked up when she saw Aigis, giving her a wave from behind Unagiya. Yuuta was as loud as ever, but he quietened down when Megumi hastily waved at him. The hems of their kimono were wet with melted snow, and their breaths came out in short, white puffs.

"Nee-san poked her finger through with a needle." Touma deadpanned.

Aigis cupped her free hand over her ear to muffle a nearly identical, high-pitched screech. It did not help much.

"Yeah, that was my reaction too." Touma continued. He finished wrapping the bandage, tying it up with a tight knot that squeezed Aigis's finger.

 _"What did you do?"_ Unagiya continued screeching, even as Hitomi, Yuuta and Megumi started to dry themselves off.

"I wanted to learn how to sew," Aigis answered bluntly, "since Touma forced me to stay in bed."

"Young lady," Unagiya growled – and it took a moment for Aigis to register that 'young lady' referred to herself – "you're supposed to be _resting_ , not working!"

"It was a perfect learning opportunity."

"Learning opportunity my ass! Students don't go to school when they're sick!"

"I think I am well enough to do something like this."

"No, you're not. You're hereby banned from doing _any_ work until you are fully recovered!"

"But–"

"You. Need. Rest."

Aigis admitted defeat.

* * *

Aigis was finally allowed to work again after three days of absolute rest, enforced by Unagiya, Megumi and Touma.

It was an agonising three days.

 _What was the term called again?_ Aigis idly wondered the first night she was allowed to help around the house. It was something that Yusuke had mentioned once after Mitsuru's funeral, about the trend of overwork.

 _Oh right, it was called 'karoshi'!_

* * *

 **Note: Karoshi (過労死): death from overwork.**

* * *

 **Happy New Year, everyone!**

 **A late chapter as usual, and it's not beta'd either (I haven't found a satisfactory beta yet). That said, I'm not giving up on this story even if it updates once in a blue moon, because I've grown...a little attached to it.**

 **I've been asked multiple times exactly when the story takes place, so here's your answer: around 300 years after Persona 3 and Bleach (which I assume takes place around the mid-2000s). It is _not_ an AU, so all canon events do happen in both series. Why 300 years, you ask? Nothing much to be honest, I just thought that it sounded about right for the lifespan of a robot like Aigis.**

 **To the Guest review on my last chapter: all I can really say is...read and see :) I'm not about to start giving spoilers here.**

 **In other news, I'm starting to work as a writer (on top of being an artist) in another fan project, and it's going to take some time away from writing this. On the other hand, I'm on my last semester of university and only have two classes to take next semester. I should still find some time to write!**

 **Next chapter will be the start of the first "arc", which I estimate will last about 3 to 4 chapters. It's going to come out somewhat late, because I want to make sure I got my details ironed out before posting anything, so please bear with me.**

 **As always, please review and point out any writing mistakes that I made!**


	6. That Which Comes From The Darkness

"Come on boys, we need to get moving!"

"Okay, Aigis-neesan!" "Coming!"

Aigis shouldered her two baskets filled with grain while she waited for Kuro and Yuuta to change into clean clothes after their morning lessons. It had rained recently, making the ground muddy, so their daily lessons became messier than usual. Still, she continued the usual tosses and throws into the ground (with Unagiya's permission, because Aigis did not want to risk her wrath of having to do more laundry than usual), because the children needed to learn how to move in different kinds of terrain, not only when the weather was fair.

Kuro and Yuuta ran out of the house two minutes later with uneven footsteps, each carrying one basket of grains – their extra crops from the harvest that survived the winter. The whole town consolidated their extra resources every year so that they could survive through harsher seasons. It had worked, so far. Water was still the most important resource considering that most people did not need to eat, but Shinigami who came through after long missions sometimes bought grains from the town when their own reserves were not enough. It meant that the Unagiya household was exempt from other forms of taxes, which was nice, even though the system was archaic in Aigis's eyes.

She set off at an easy pace as the boys followed her.

"Aigis-neesan, how do you never seem to get dirty from practice?" Kuro asked, a little short on breath as he adjusted his own basket of grains. "It's been eight years, and I've never seen you change out of your clothes after it!"

She gave an easy smile as she helped to balance the baskets on Yuuta's back. "I don't really care about dirty clothes." She said. "Besides, I know how to control my strength so that dirt does not come flying my way."

"Isn't that like magic, Aigis-neechan?" Yuuta asked. He pranced around Kuro and Aigis excitedly, entirely disregarding the substantial weight on his back.

"Well, you all can use reiatsu right?" she replied with a laugh. "That's basically magic, isn't it?"

"But you aren't using reiatsu!" Kuro retorted.

"You can start predicting your environment once you have enough experience." She said patiently.

"How long did that take for you?" Yuuta asked excitedly.

Aigis flicked him on the forehead. "That's like asking a girl how old she is, Yuuta." She chided playfully. "Gentlemen don't ask that question."

Their banter rang loud through the muddy roads, until they reached wet pavement, with a large brick house dominating their path. This was their destination – the village elder's house.

"It sounds…pretty noisy today, doesn't it?" Kuro frowned at the closed wooden door.

Satou Daiki, the village elder, lived by himself. He usually either rested in his own home, or went out to inspect the town. He was a friendly old man who had apparently kept the town running for the past three hundred years. So it was fairly unusual for the house to sound like a party was going on inside unless there was a festival going on. Unless Aigis's memory was bad, there should be no festival today.

"Stay here." She instructed the boys, then walked up and rapped loudly on the wooden door.

"Satou-san? It's the Unagiya household!" Aigis called over the din.

There was some shuffling of feet and cloth, before she heard the distinctly slow taps of the elder walking up to the door. It opened up wide, revealing his smiling face and a whole group of strangers that she was sure did not live in the town.

"Oh my, I forgot you were coming over, Aigis-chan!" Satou apologized. His fine white beard flailed in the wind, and his bald forehead somehow managed to catch sunshine when there was barely any. He shuffled to the side, leaving the door open. "Please come on in. I'm sure you had a long journey."

"Thank you Satou-san," she smiled, picking up her own baskets of food. "But like I've said before, it only takes half an hour to walk here, so it's all right."

"Would you care to stay for some tea and snacks?" He asked.

"No, really, it's all right…" Aigis's voice trailed off.

There were many more people in the room than she had thought. She counted about twenty people crammed into the room, all wearing dirty rags of sorts that looked too thin to provide adequate warmth in the still chilly spring. They were obviously from the lower districts, and she saw a wide range of ages within the people, from young children to people who look even older than Satou. The exception to that was one man wearing a much thicker, cleaner dark blue kimono. He was a tall, wiry man, with piercing eyes and long black hair that he tied back. His hands were tucked into his sleeves, while he sat casually on one of the few available chairs, his katana hanging loosely from his waist. Everyone in the room were staring at them.

Being the center of attention was awkward enough, but at the same time Aigis felt a strange shiver go through her entire body. It was not from coldness – she was dressed warmly enough – but her skin felt weird, with bumps forming along the few bared areas she left uncovered. She glanced briefly at Kuro and Yuuta, who seemed much more interested in the snacks that Satou was offering.

Something triggered her defenses. Her instincts told her to run.

"…you seem busy." Aigis finished lamely.

Satou laughed, a hearty, throaty sound that was always pleasant to hear, and patted her back. "It's never trouble to thank you kids! Come on, you all need some food to sustain yourselves, right?"

Before Aigis could refuse, Kuro and Yuuta had already surged forward, surrounding Satou and begging for snacks. He laughed again and led all three to the back of his house to store their grains and get food. They came out munching on crackers.

"Huh, you guys have reiatsu?"

Aigis looked over. It was the man with the katana who spoke.

"Yes, we do." She said, voice carefully neutral. "Everyone who lives in our household does."

He made a thoughtful, low hum. "I was wondering where all the stocks of food came from, considering that most people living in Rukongai don't have reiatsu."

"Shinigami sometimes pass through the area, so we sell the food to them." Aigis replied. "Though I have to wonder, how did you get here?"

"We walked."

She was momentarily thrown off by the casual remark, then rephrased her question. "Sorry, that was not what I meant. Why did you come here? The road is dangerous with stray Hollows and bandits, so I thought most people would stay within their own towns."

He nodded in understanding. "Ah, that. Well you see…we were ostracized."

Aigis frowned. It could not be due to racism or the likes of something as petty as that due to the wide variety of people in the group, so what caused it?

"Religious reasons." He elaborated.

She did not even know that there were different religions here!

"What kind of religion do you believe in?" Kuro piped up, mouth caked with crumbs from the cracker he was eating.

"A goddess to deliver us to salvation, dear." An old lady said. Her face was full of wrinkles, but she kept up a friendly smile. "Namba-sama guides us on our journey." She nodded towards the man in the blue kimono.

"Just protecting them to the best of my ability." Namba explained. He shifted his legs to a more comfortable position. "I'm a retired Shinigami. My captain said I needed a break, but I couldn't sit still, so here I am."

That explained why he was carrying a katana with him.

"Can I see your sword? Please?" Yuuta stared up at Namba with his best puppy eyes, but Aigis was not getting a child hurt on her watch.

"You're crowding him, Yuuta." Aigis chided as she gently lifted her up by the collar of his kimono and deposited him near the entrance. She bowed slightly towards the large group of people. "Sorry about that. We should really be leaving now, so I hope you all have a good day. Also Satou-san, thank you for the crackers."

They stepped out into sunlight filtering through clouds, and her defenses settled down, skin back to normal. It felt strange, because it was the first time her instincts screamed danger since she arrived at the Unagiya household – there simply were not many threats around here.

She had never felt unsafe within Satou's house, so the logical conclusion was that there was something wrong with the group of refugees. However, their expressions looked far too honest. Aigis considered herself good at judging people – it came with the territory of being a Fool – so the contrasting signals that the refugees sent to her made her head ache.

"Be careful around those people." She warned in a low voice, once they were back on the muddy paths leading back home.

"But they seemed like nice people…" Kuro whined as he wiped stray crumbs off his mouth.

"Trust your big sister on this one, okay?" Aigis pleaded.

Both boys looked rather confused as they nodded, but Aigis smiled to reassure them as much as she could.

* * *

"Outsiders?" Unagiya frowned at Aigis, long after the children went to bed.

"I think they're dangerous." She confirmed.

They were seated at the dining table, lit by a single candlelight. The swaying flame cast flickering shadows on the wall, and Unagiya's frown was more prominent than usual with the strong shadows. She shifted slightly from her cross-legged position on the floor, while Aigis sat still seiza style.

"What makes you think so?" Unagiya asked, cradling her slowly cooling tea in her hands.

"A hunch." Aigis replied.

Unagiya crossed her arms in frustration. "That vagueness isn't helping, Aigis." She chided. "Satou-san has kept the peace of this village for three hundred years. His judgement is pretty good, you know."

"I trust his judgement, Unagiya-san." Aigis said firmly. "But something about them feels…wrong. Like they're hiding something dangerous."

"I really doubt a group of refugees can be dangerous." Unagiya said.

"I agree with you," Aigis hesitated on her words. "Just…I kind of wonder where they came from."

"Now that you mention it, they didn't tell you?"

"No, it never came up. All I know is that most of them are from the lower districts."

"Most?"

"Well, there's one man who claims to be a retired Shinigami."

Unagiya paused, humming thoughtfully to herself. "From what I heard, retiring is a pretty new thing in Seireitei. They only let off people who can't fight anymore, or people who asked for it and had a good track record to prove their worth, or those who they don't want…to deal…with…" Her voice trailed off.

For a minute, the night was silent.

"How did you know all that information?" Aigis asked.

"You won't believe how much Shinigami gossip when they think their superiors aren't around." Unagiya muttered.

"He's probably dangerous then." Aigis concluded. "No visible injuries, claimed that he couldn't sit still – this does not sound like a man who willingly retired."

Unagiya leaned back and huffed, then pinched the bridge of her nose. "Fine then. I'll avoid them."

"Just keep an eye out, Unagiya-san." Aigis advised. "Try not to act too differently."

"I'm not a spy, Aigis." Unagiya groused while sipping her tea. "I can't act."

"Trust me," Aigis laughed a little, some of the tension lost. "I can't act either."

* * *

A month passed awkwardly, as the town adjusted to more people living there, even temporarily. Water almost ran out at one point, until Satou reduced the daily allowance for each household so the town could tide over the minor drought.

The refugees helped out with the daily running of chores and occasionally helped out at the farm. At night, they stayed in Satou's house. Aigis did not know how they all fit in there, but she did not want to find out. They were mostly friendly people, but conversation with them were short and clipped. They did their work quietly and spent their free time huddled together, as if they were conspiring some sort of unsavoury plan. It was unnerving and prevented the refugees from fully integrating into the town community.

Unagiya and Aigis made sure that at least one of them was in the house at any time to protect the children in case something happened. The children noticed, but Aigis never managed to come up with a good enough excuse on why they could not go out and play as they liked, or stay in the house unsupervised like before.

It felt horrible, to limit what the children could do. The town was supposed to be safe.

Something tugged at the hem of her kimono, snapping Aigis out of her thoughts. Hitomi looked up at her with slightly squinting eyes, shielding them from the glare of the morning sun. It was a fine day for work in the fields.

Unagiya had taken the chance to run some errands within the town, so Aigis stayed behind to look after the children, and keep an eye on whenever any of the refugees came over to help. They have not tried anything overt yet, but considering how badly the refugees were integrating into the community, she worried. She also tried to coax information out of them about their "goddess", but she never managed to find out much, not even the goddess's name.

She pushed her thoughts aside again, and turned her attention to Hitomi.

"Is something wrong, Hitomi?" Aigis asked gently.

Hitomi did not say anything, simply staring straight ahead at the dusty road leading to the town. Aigis followed her gaze.

An old woman walked alone towards their house, still covered in the rags that she arrived with a month ago. Aigis smiled in welcome, while Hitomi darted behind her and hid herself in the larger shadow that Aigis cast, away from the gaze of the old woman. Strands of short, silver hair drifted in the wind, while her gnarled hands barely kept her cloak together. The town had offered the refugees proper clothes at one point, but they refused, stating that their rags were enough. It was a strange thing to reject, considering that they were steadily depleting the water supply and grain stocks of the town.

"Good to see you again, Yoshida-san." Aigis greeted the lady. "How was your trip?"

"As peaceful as ever, dear." Yoshida replied. "It almost feels unreal, like a god had blessed this land."

"I do not think a god had blessed this land." Aigis said respectfully. "It simply is the result of hard work and careful management."

"All the same, you created a masterful piece of work worthy of the gods." Yoshida smiled. It was crooked and full of wrinkles, but the smile felt genuine.

Something about that smile still felt off to Aigis, which unsettled her.

"I never was a part of this." She said. "I only maintained what was already here."

"You give yourself too little credit, dear." Yoshida replied. She then directed a smile and a wave at Hitomi. "And a good day to you too, dear Hitomi-chan."

Aigis barely managed to hear the greeting that Hitomi mumbled out.

"Please forgive her." Aigis placed a hand around Hitomi's back, then faced Yoshida. "She's painfully shy, and it might still be a while before she warms up to you."

"That's fine, Aigis-chan." Yoshida smiled again. "So, is there anything you need help with today?"

"I believe that the weeds need pulling in the fields." Aigis replied. "Do you require a shovel?"

"Thank you for the concern, dear, but this back is still good for a few hours of bending." Yoshida laughed, a high-pitched sound that resembled a screech more than a proper laugh.

Aigis laughed awkwardly with Yoshida, but inwardly she frowned. Yoshida's back was bent enough to show her age. Aigis did not see any possible way for her back to survive pulling weeds for six hours.

Out of concern, she still took out a shovel from their storage, with Hitomi clinging to her kimono the entire time. "Please use this. I would prefer you to not injure yourself unnecessarily."

"You're too kind, dear." Yoshida took the shovel and bowed in thanks, then hobbled away to the fields.

"Come on, Unagiya-san asked you to help out in the fields too, right?" Aigis said as she gently pried Hitomi away from her kimono. "If anything is wrong just come back okay?"

Hitomi looked hesitantly at Yoshida's back, then gave a tiny nod. She took a shovel herself, then walked to the field where Touma and Ryou were working.

There was simply too much to do around the house, and Aigis could not keep an eye on the children all the time. She did however trust Touma to take care of anything minor, and go to her if anything happened.

It was late afternoon when Yoshida hobbled back from the fields with the children in tow. Hitomi was clinging onto Touma, which was to be expected, but the silence between the boys were not.

"Well then, I'll be going on first." Yoshida said cheerfully before Aigis opened her mouth. "I'll see you another day, my dears." She lightly patted the childrens' heads.

Aigis barely restrained herself from slapping the hand away, and even the children seemed to inch away from the old lady. Hitomi outright hid herself behind Aigis, shielding her face with her black bangs.

It did not seem to dampen Yoshida's cheer, and soon enough she was on her way back to town. Aigis rounded on the children once Yoshida's hobbling figure was out of sight.

"Did something happen?" she asked urgently.

The boys looked at each other hesitantly, frowning at the fields and looking everywhere but Hitomi. "I'm…not sure what happened." Touma finally said.

"What do you mean?" Aigis pressed.

"Well…that old hag came to us while we were working." Ryou began slowly.

"I would normally object to the use of the word 'old hag' but continue please." Aigis said.

"She was just rambling about her goddess, you know?" Ryou continued after a brief, fierce frown. "Then Hitomi saw a tattoo on her shoulder while she was talking to us, and she just freaked out and had basically been clinging onto Touma-niichan ever since then."

It was a bare-bones explanation with too many parts missing, but Aigis would have to make do. She bent down and gently swept the bangs out of Hitomi's eyes.

Aigis had not noticed it before, but Hitomi's breaths were coming in short, shallow gasps. Her pupils were dilated, rimmed with tears, and she was shivering all over despite wearing adequately warm clothing.

Without a word, Aigis wrapped Hitomi into a firm hug, gently patting her down her back.

"You are safe here, Hitomi-chan." Aigis tried to use her best soothing voice, hoping that she could calm the girl down before she hurt herself. "I will never let anyone harm you."

The boys looked on with slowly dawning understanding, and they joined in to huddle Hitomi, giving her warmth and soft reassurances until she fell asleep, still clinging onto Aigis's kimono.

"Hey kids! I'm ba- what's going on?" Unagiya's loud greeting was swiftly silenced by the collective glares of Aigis, Ryou and Touma. Megumi and Hiroki both looked perplexed at the odd positions everyone was caught in, while Unagiya's look of confusion was immediately replaced by lines of worry when she spotted Hitomi in the center of their group.

"I'll explain later." Aigis said softly. She lifted Hitomi up into her arms and laid her down in her futon. "Something came up while Yoshida-san was around."

It was after dinner when there was finally enough time to sit down and explain what happened. By the end of it, Unagiya looked about as confused as Aigis when she first saw the boys that afternoon.

"That doesn't explain anything!" Unagiya moaned.

"I don't think we should push Hitomi into explaining what she saw though." Aigis reasoned. "It shook her bad enough to have a panic attack. That is not something you see in children."

"Yeah, I know, but…" Unagiya trailed off, before heaving a loud sigh. "The boys didn't see anything, so what was going on?" She looked ready to slam the dining table.

Touma and Ryou both hung their heads in shame, the shadows of the dimly lit house covering their expressions.

"Uh, not your fault boys." Unagiya placated them when she saw their expression. "You guys did well in the circumstances allowed." She tried for a smile, but it looked strained and a little creepy in the candlelight.

"Food…"

Everyone at the table turned around to the source of the noise. Hitomi walked unsteadily to them, rubbing her eyes. Megumi silently got up from the table and poured a bowl of hot porridge, then laid it down in front of Hitomi when she sat down at her usual seat. The household watched her eat, though she seemed unusually oblivious.

Finally, when the bowl was empty, Unagiya broke the silence. "Are you all right, Hitomi?"

The dam broke.

Hitomi threw herself upon Unagiya, who looked surprised for all of half a second before she hauled the tiny girl into her lap, rubbing her back in much the same way Aigis did that afternoon. The muffled wails and hiccups rang through the house.

"I don't wanna go back to them! Please!" Hitomi cried, her voice high-pitched and broken in a way that hurt to hear.

"Shhh," Unagiya cooed as she continued petting her. "We won't let anyone come and take you away. Don't worry about it. This is your home."

Megumi quietly took the dishes away and washed them, while everyone else silently watched Hitomi cry for the next ten minutes, until she calmed down enough to just sniffle every few seconds. Even Kousuke was quiet, until he tried to help Unagiya by petting Hitomi on her back. She stiffened for a second, but relaxed after she saw who it was. Unagiya released Hitomi gently after she stopped crying, ignoring the large wet stain down the front of her kimono. She kept a hand around Hitomi to support her.

"Did you know these people?" Unagiya asked gently.

Hitomi nodded numbly, still rubbing at her now swollen eyes.

"How did you know them?" Unagiya pressed.

Hitomi sniffled a little, then spoke in her usual soft voice, broken by sniffles and hiccups. "One of them took me in when I was still in the lower districts. He seemed like a nice person, and said he wanted to train my power to be used for good."

Aigis blinked. She did not know that Hitomi had lived with other people before she arrived at the Unagiya household.

"He taught me how to use reiatsu." She continued. "He treated me like his own daughter. But he wouldn't let me do things by myself, and hit me when I tried to sneak out. He didn't let me meet anyone else."

Hitomi was shaking again, and Unagiya brought her closer to her own warmth.

"After a long time, he took me out, saying that he wanted me to meet new people. He took me to a place far away, in a forest. There was a house there, with lots of people inside." Hitomi said. "There was one drawing all over the walls, and the people there had it on their bodies too. They were hitting each other, and there was so much blood. They were laughing, screaming about the world ending, and how they would…" She trailed off, looking smaller and more scared than ever.

"He said he wanted me to be like that. But I didn't want to, so I ran." Hitomi mumbled the last part. "I think the people were crazy enough to not find me even though I heard them looking for me the whole night. I ended up in another district before I came here."

Kousuke was the first to comfort Hitomi after she finished her story, then the other children joined in slowly, all huddled around her to ward off her dark past.

Aigis felt terrible for breaking the moment, but she had to ask. "Was the drawing you saw on Yoshida-san the same one on the walls?"

Hitomi nodded.

"Can you show me? We can do it outside, on the ground."

Normally Aigis would never trust a child to have good enough drawing skills to show what she saw, but Hitomi was gifted in the arts. Aigis was sure that she would be able to make out what Hitomi drew.

Hitomi nodded again silently, and Unagiya hurriedly took a blanket from a futon and wrapped it around Hitomi before she stepped out into the cool night. With a single lantern to light the ground that Aigis held, Hitomi traced out the drawing from her mind with her fingertips.

"It looked like this." She said softly, then withdrew back into her blanket.

Aigis dropped her lantern right on top of the drawing. The candlelight was snuffed out, plunging the immediate surrounding to darkness, but she was too shocked at what she just saw.

It was simple, as far as drawings went. It showed a grinning triangle mask, with two holes and a slit in place of eyes and mouth. The mask was topped with a crown that was twice as big, extending out from a tiny base to a large bowl.

"Wait, Aigis-chan…" Unagiya rounded to her. "Did you recognise the drawing too?"

Aigis barely managed a tiny, jerky nod.

It had been three hundred years since she saw that mask, but that was a memory which could never be deleted.

After all, Nyx took her beloved Makoto.

* * *

 **A/N: I'm alive! 7 chapters in 1 year is pretty bad, but I'm still around! Thank you to everyone who had favourited and followed this story over the year, even though updates are so bad and the chapters aren't long at all...**

 **This chapter fought me most of the way (as expected), especially when I had trouble deciding on where to end this particular chapter. I ended up with what I had above. Next chapter...well, I think you can expect what to happen. As usual, it may take a while, but** **since the outline of this arc has been mostly set, hopefully it won't take months to finish writing it...**

 **A little update on what I had been doing between the last chapter and now - I attended two anime cons and went cosplaying for the first time! If you saw someone cosplaying as Mash from F/GO at Katsucon or Tora-Con who gave out little postcards, that's me :D I also have another cosplay on the way, but my next con will most likely be in London due to my studies.**

 **As always, I live off comments and constructive criticism, so keep them coming! I especially want to hear about this curve ball that I threw at you guys :3**


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